Artist Brad Faine was born and grew up in Brighton. He is the son of a Royal Australian Air Force bomber pilot and a British cabaret singer, who met and married in 1944. He studied Fine Art (Painting) at Leicester College of Art where he achieved a Dip Ad (Hons) under the tutelage of Harry Thubron, an early proponent of conceptual art, and subsequently completed a Post Graduate ATC course at Goldsmiths. During his time at Leicester, Faine developed the first truly playable 3d Chess set which was exhibited at the ‘Invention of Problems’ Exhibition at the ICA. He also was responsible for the concept for ‘Inter-play’, one of the two British entries for the 1968 Paris Biennale.
On leaving College in 1972 Brad and his wife Jane founded Coriander Studio, which grew from a cottage industry into an internationally renowned maker and publisher of limited edition silk-screen and more recently digital prints. The Studio has, over the last 40 years, worked with more than 300 artists ranging from Henri Chopin (one of the worlds leading exponents of sound poetry) to Romain de Tirtoff known as Erte, Patrick Huges to John Hoyland, Richard Hamilton to Peter Blake , Michael Craig-Martin to Damien Hirst.
In addition to being the managing director of Coriander Studio, he has taught printmaking as a visiting lecturer at a number of art schools including St Martins College of Art and Design, West Sussex College of Art (Farnham), and the Royal Academy of Art. where he also had a one man show in the Coffee Bar Gallery. He has been involved in many collaborative demonstrations of print-making including a Ganada Television film with Patrick Hughes, Brendan Neiland and Michael Rothenstein, and print project with Bruce McLean at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He has also been a guest speaker at a number of national and international printmaking symposia.
Throughout Coriander’s 40 year history, Faine has continued to work as a painter and printmaker in his own right. He has works in many private and public collections in the UK, the USA and the Middle East, and has had work included mixed shows in London, New York, Dubai and Tokyo. Recent exhibitions include a one-man show at the Chelsea Arts club, a major joint print show with Peter Blake and Brendan Neiland at Leicester City Art Gallery, a one-man show at the London Sketch Club and another at 45 Park Lane (the Cut), and a three month exhibition with Steve Thomas at Chelsea Future Space.
In 1984 he was responsible for initiating the concept of ‘Visual Aid for Band Aid’ and along with Peter Blake, Graham Bannister and Gordon House, was integral in the organization of 104 artists and the production of an edition of 500 prints, the proceeds of which went to the Band Aid Trust.
In 1989 Faine was invited to write The New Guide to Screen Printing, which was published by Hodder Headline. Subsequently, he has written articles for books on artists such as Terry Frost, Brendan Neiland, and Peter Blake.
His prints have been published by Christie’s Contemporary Art, Coriander Studio, Art For Offices, Anderson O’Day and CCA Galleries in the UK, Kane Fine Art, Greg Croston and recently Chalk and Vermilionin the USA. His works are held in the corporate collections of many international companies including BMW, British Rail and Epson UK. All of Brad’s prints and canvasses are available through Fane Contemporary Art.
2014 saw the first one-man show of his printed works on canvass at ‘Dark Matter Studio Gallery’. This change in direction was at the suggestion of Bruce McLean, who thought the prints should be larger so the the detail of the individual elements that constituted them could be seen more easily . The problem with enlarging the prints was that the paper seemed too thin for the sizes at which he wanted to work, and the safety problems and costs inherent when using large glass frames made them prohibitive. The solution was to make canvasses, as this solved the size and framing problem (they do need to be framed) and also added the opportunity to hand work the pieces.
Brad Faine has written a number of articles and introductions books and catalogues for artists’ with whom he has worked. This year his novel ‘A Killing in Prospect’ is published on Kindle. The story is a work of fiction, concerning a series of incidents that were rumoured have occurred in and around the 1988 New York Art Fair, amongst that group of dealers known collectively as ‘Art Runners’.
2015 was notable as it was the year in which he had his first one man show in Mayfair, called iPrints at The Albemarle Gallery. He also exhibited with Brendan Neiland and Simon Burton at the GX Gallery. Ray Perman of the Grosvenor Gallery saw the Albemarle show and introduced Brad to David Rogath, Director of Chalk and Vermilion Galleries in the USA. David commissioned 6 editions, each comprising 8 mono print colourways of works on canvas to show at his 10 major galleries throughout America.