Royal College of Art

For 35 years Alistair Grant, the Royal College of Art and Printmaking were indivisible: 35 generations of artists learnt printmaking from him. Yet throughout his life Grant was as well-known an artist as a teacher. He was a painter and a printmaker of considerable ability, and in his printmaking he was a great experimentalist. He fused media — litho with silk-screen, silk-screen with etching, and often all three together.

Grant graduated from the RCA in 1950. Five years later he returned as Tutor in Printmaking. He became the Head of Department in 1970, and was made Professor in 1984.

Grant was the consummate head of department. His stated philosophy was that printmaking students should be encouraged not only to make prints but to paint and sculpt as well.

He insisted that all the teaching staff should be practising artists. He had a keenly developed political sensibility matched by an independence of mind and a toughness common to many of the staff who had been to art school following the experience of the war. He loved the college, and enjoyed the tussles involved in promoting the interests of printmaking.

Initiator & innovator

As a young tutor he had seen the potential of screen printing for artists and introduced it into the department. He incorporated photo-imagery and encouraged wide artistic practice — making books, painting, sculpture, photography, drawing — all of which he believed made the artist bigger by informing the work more deeply.

Grant also had a strong entrepreneurial streak. In the Eighties he initiated the Royal College's Printmaking Appeal Fund, which published two of the most important print portfolios of the last few decades in order to raise funds for the printmaking students. Almost every important British artist of the second half of the century is represented.

Grant's last print, Fête Champêtre, a combination of litho and silk-screen in 18 colours, was made for The Royal College of Art Centenary portfolio, published in November 1996, and exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of The Spirit of the Staircase.

Character

Alistair Grant was a large personality, a bon vivant. At the college he made sure that things in the Senior Common Room were as they should be — properly convivial. Through his French roots he was a knowledgeable chairman of the wine committee. His table at lunchtime was raucous. He was very likeable and very good company.

Grant was a tough taskmaster. He believed that strong criticism not only helped the work but engendered resilience — a commodity that would be much valued after graduation.