PRINTFEST is taking over the Coronation Hall in Ulverston this weekend, with more than 50 artists exhibiting.

One of the UK’s foremost artist-led printmaking festivals, this year's event looks set to be a record-breaker.

Having taken a break in 2016, the new team behind organising the festival have created a programme featuring more exhibiting artists, more artworks for sale and more awards for artists than ever before.

There are nine awards this year, the most prestigious being Printmaker of the Year 2017, awarded to Jason Hicklin.

Jason was elected a member of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers in 1993 and is a lecturer of printmaking at City and Guilds Art School in London.

Awarded the Printmakers’ Printmaker in 2015 was Fouzia Zafar, who received this accolade from her fellow printmakers. She lives and works in Glasgow and was elected an associate member of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers.

Other leading printmakers involved include: Kendal-based Jamie Barnes, who will be exhibiting for the first time; Scottish artist Georgina Bown, displaying her growing obsession with monolithic metal structures of submarines; respected Cumbrian printmaker Raymond Higgs, who has previously had a solo show at Abbot Hall Gallery; returning Bristol screen printer Jane Ormes; collagraph and litho pair Carol Pairaudeau and Paula Gamble Swartz; and Flora McLachlan, who gives a medieval romance to her etchings.


Printfest was founded in 2001 by print-making artists Judy Evans and Ronkey Bullard, with the help of Chris Benefield, who owned The Tinners’ Rabbit in Market Street, Ulverston.

The new team behind Printfest includes Judy Evans, alongside Tina Balmer, Valerie Madden and Sally Bamber, with her husband Keith Bamber as treasurer and returning member Janet Benefield, the wife of the original chair Chris Benefield, who passed away in 2015.

Printfest also now has a Patron, Tim Robertson, who has a life-long involvement in the arts, working with, amongst others, Anthony Gormley and Greyson Perry.

New Printfest Awards in 2017 include: Visitors’ Choice, sponsored by James Cropper PLC; the Awagami Paper Award; the Founders’ Award; the McClures Award; the Haigh Award; and Chris Benefield is remembered fondly by the Chris Benefield Memorial Award.

A portion of the funding is coming from the Sir John Fisher Foundation. It will fund the Printmakers of the Past stand, and for 2017 it will be presenting Francisco de Goya.

Goya is considered one the most important Spanish artists of late 18th and early 19th centuries and he was also a prolific printmaker, famed for his etchings and aquatints.

Sally Bamber says: "We are looking forward to welcoming visitors to the fun of the event, welcoming our funders, friends of Printfest and sponsors, to the excitement of the awards presentations, as well as supporting the arts."

Printfest is open to the public at the Coronation Hall, in Ulverston, on Saturday from 10am to 5pm, and on Sunday from 10am to 4pm.

The Visitor’ Choice award and Printmakers’ Printmaker Award will be announced from 3.30pm on Sunday.

Entrance is payable on the day. For more information, visit www.printfest.uk