Accession Code: wu0688 Title: Magpie Date completed: 1994 Medium: Prints Material: Lithograph Height (mm): 406 Width (mm): 304 Depth (mm): n/a Inscription: Signed and numbered 14/80. Stamped BS. Location Name: Social Sciences Location Description: Sociology Location Floor: 0

© the Artist’s Estate. All Rights Reserved 2019/ Bridgeman Images

This lithograph exemplifies the individual visual language which Aitchison developed, making use of a limited range of simple shapes, typically a figure, tree, bird or dog. These deceptively simple images often have a powerful emotional impact.

This lithograph is from London Birds, a set of nine prints published in 1994 by the Byam Shaw School of Art to raise funds for its student scholarship and bursary fund. The participants generously donated their work and the portfolio was printed in an edition of eighty. The artists were asked to contribute an image reflecting one of the birds of London. The purpose was not to produce an ornithological record but to provide a unifying theme through which the individual temperaments and styles of this group of distinguished artists could be expressed.

The portfolio was puchased for the University by the Friends of the Mead.