Richard Browne’s Newcastle, in New South Wales with a distant view of Point Stephen 1812 and another of his engravings, View of the Hunters River, near Newcastle, from the same date, are the earliest prints in the collection. There are almost fifty prints from the colonial era in the works on paper holdings and many of these, like Browne’s engravings, relate to the early history of the Hunter region. Prints by Walter Preston and Joseph Lycett are strongly represented along with works by J. H. Clark and John Skinner Prout. The collection also contains many of the other images by S. T. Gill and Eugène von Guérard that circulated throughout Australia and Britain, representing picturesque views of colonial landscapes and life on the gold fields. Such prints are important historical documents but because of the great rarity of material for this period the collecting focus has been on items relevant to the region.
The great strength of the collection is in twentieth-century and contemporary original artist’s prints. The Newcastle Region Art Gallery is nationally recognized for the quality and depth of its print collection and no doubt this is partly due to the fact that it is one of the few galleries, state or regional, that has published a comprehensive catalogue of its holdings; in particular, a four-volume fully-illustrated catalogue from 1812 to 1996. Now approaching 800 items, the collection includes important complete suites, series and folios: John Coburn’s Seven days of Creation, Lloyd Rees’ Australian Landscape I - IV, Keith Looby’s History of Australia,Imants Tillers and George Baldessin’s According to Des Esseintes, Arthur Boyd’s Narcissus Suite, Jan Senberg’s Voyage Six - Antarctica, Bea Maddock’s Forty pages from Antarctica and Mike Parr’s Untitled self portrait (1989).
In the first half of the twentieth century both conservative artists and modernists gave particular attention to production of prints and this has resulted in a great variety of works from this period. Along side the compulsively detailed etchings, drypoints and wood engravings of traditionalists, exemplified by Lionel Lindsay, the collection holds the bold prints of progressives such as Jessie Traill and Eirene Mort and decorative icons by the modernists Margaret Preston and Thea Proctor. Proctor’s woodcut The Rose 1927 was derived from a cover design she produced for the ultra-stylish magazine the Home.
For the period 1965 to 1985 the collection is exhaustively inclusive since this was the period of an enormous Australian and international resurgence of interest in printmaking. Many leading painters, both abstract and figurative, were engaged in the print renaissance. Of these, Fred Williams is particularly well represented in the print collection, as is John Brack, Sydney Ball, John Olsen and Bea Maddock. Such was the interest in printmaking during the 1970s that a number of artists made the print their primary medium of expression. Barbara Hanrahan was one of these. Tart and stars 1975 is typical of the prints that gained her national acclaim. Newcastle also figured in this print revival through the work of the Newcastle Printmaker’s Workshop. East End: Before and After was a huge collective printmaking project based on the history of Newcastle's East End around Nobbys Head. The project, exhibited in the Newcastle Region Art Gallery in 1985, achieved national recognition and the collection of prints were later acquired by the National Gallery of Australia.
Contemporary printmaking has been invigorated by new digital technology. But many contemporary artists, most notably Imants Tillers and Mike Parr, have shown that the traditional approaches still have great potential for powerful pictorial expression. Recent acquisitions have included new digital print formats along with more traditional printmaking forms.