Biography
Rob Barnes studied painting and printmaking at Hull College of Art and London University in the
early 1960s. He taught etching, screen-printing, lino and related surface printmaking at Keswick
Hall College in Norfolk. He later moved to the University of East Anglia, Norwich where he continued
teaching in the School of Education until 2006.
Presently he divides his time between printmaking and his other passion, playing the violin in local
orchestras and for choral performances. In 2017 he began making a small number of sterling silver
jewellery pieces following a course at West Dean, Sussex.
Click to enlarge
Penannular brooch inspired by a Viking pin brooch.
Sterling silver and 18ct gold
His artwork follows themes, such as light on water, or shadows in the landscape. Linocuts are
hand-printed on an Albion press built by Harry Rochat printers’ engineers in the London borough
of Barnet. This is a copy of a press by Ulmer and Sons 1854 but much improved in design and function.
It may look Victorian, but was cast and finished in 2013 as press number 0007.
‘Living half a mile from the river Yare in Norfolk, I look out across the marshes in one direction and
across open fields in the other. There are muntjac deer and hares in winter chasing across the fields
opposite. As spring approaches, there are times when I could almost sell tickets for the display of
hares chasing and competing. There can be as many as ten in the field and they can be surprisingly
large. I see them as silhouettes against the light and they never stay still for long. Another passion is
drawing old wooden boats, clinker-built and seen on the Suffolk coast at Southwold and Aldeburgh.’
