Screen Prints 

Harry Hummerston was born in Wagin WA, in 1952. He moved as a child with his family across regional Australia, following his father’s advancement at work. He was schooled in country NSW, Geraldton and Victoria Park in WA, before graduating from Hale School in Perth. His mother had an interest in watercolour painting.

 

Hummerston studied to be a primary school teacher at Graylands Teachers College graduating in 1973 before completing successive higher qualifications, an Associateship in Art Teaching and BA in Fine Arts at WA Institute of Technology (W.A.I.T.) now Curtin University, in 1983. It was as a student teacher, with a strong vocational interest in art, that Hummerston was introduced to printmaking by WA printmaker Leon Pericles and subsequently developed a strong interest in screen printing. Screen printing appealed to Hummerston offering a range of processes to work up editions of colourful images economically. Hummerston had to largely find his own way with screen printing, although gained valuable support from studio technician, Vic Anderson, at a time when printmaking at W.A.I.T. was in its infancy and had few resources of its own. Encouraged by printmakers Helen Taylor and Ray Beattie, Hummerston would subsequently champion progressive block out screen printing techniques in creating sophisticated images from a single screen. For a decade after graduating and while working as a teacher, Hummerston would continue to produce print series and editions to a high standard before abandoning screen printing in the early 1990’s, due to health risks associated with long term exposure to toxic solvent based inks.

 

Hummerston would complete a Master of Arts qualification at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University in 2002. His career in art education spans thirty years, and his experience ranges from primary, secondary, TAFE and tertiary teaching, culminating in being appointed as Head of Dept. of Art at Curtin University in 2003-5. In 2006, after coordinating the RMIT Print Studio in Melbourne, Hummerston was in a position to pursue his art practice full time in WA.

 

Hummerston has made a significant contribution to arts practice in WA and has been involved in print organisations nationally including WA Printmakers Association and has been recipient of numerous grants and awards and was Print Council of Australia commissioned artist in 1985. He has exhibited extensively both locally and overseas and is represented in State and National Public Collections such as AGWA, NGV, NGA, Australian War Memorial, Artbank, many Municipal Collections, including City of Fremantle and important private collections including Kerry Stokes, Janet Holmes à Court, L&E Horn and Wesfarmers Collection. Harry Hummerston is represented by Turner Galleries, Perth.