British Council British Council Visual Arts

In December 1948 Philip Hendy was appointed to select works for purchase by the British Council from the exhibition of the London Society of Painters-Printers held at the Redfern Gallery, London that same month. 32 monotypes and four copies of 24 lithographs were acquired. These were divided into four shows and sent for exhibition in small centres in Germany, France and Indonesia. A smaller group was sent to Austria to be shown at the international school at Alpbach during August and September 1949.

In February 1950 it was reported that the works sent to Germany had been shown in Aurich, Osnabruck, Hanover. Bremen, Brunswick, Eutin. Schleswig, Flensburg, Kiel, Hamburg and Lubeck, staying approximately nine days in each venue with attendance figures varying between 120 in Osnabruck and 2,100 in the Civic Museum in Felnsburg. The exhibition was temporarily enlarged with the addition of 28 works for the showing during the Berliner Festival at the Rathaus at Tempelhof (2-30 September 1952)

The set sent to Batavia in Indonesia was later shown at the graphic section of an international art exhibition organised by the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society that opened in New Delhi on 5 August 1952 and later toured to Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Hyderbad, before travelling to Ceylon, Pakistan (opening on 5 September 1957 in Dacca), Japan, Australia and South America.

One set of the prints was shown at the International Exhibition of Drawings and Engravings in Lugano which opened on 14 April 1953, this set later travelled to the Netherlands and Yugoslavia, and thence to Spain (Oviedo, Avilés, Gijon, Laurca, Ribadesella. Valencia, Cordoba), Portugal and Israel.

A catalogue, with a foreword by Alex F Mitchell, Director of the Sorsbie Gallery, was published in Nairobi; no ISBN.