Pretsell was born in Edinburgh in 1942; he studied at Edinburgh College of Art, where he was a contemporary of John Bellany and Sandy Moffat.
He can really be very much considered a bit of an outsider artist. He worked briefly as an art teacher in Fife before accepting a post to teach on the foundation course at Northampton School of Art.
His bold and flamboyant lithographs and screenprints show the same clarity of line, lightness of touch, and acuteness of observation, as well as the influence of the artists he loved - Francis Bacon, Picasso, and Frank Stella.
In 1985, he accepted a job as a lecturer in printmaking and drawing at Edinburgh College of Art.
Fifteen years later he was made Head of Printmaking. He was also the ECA's exhibitions organizer for several years, filling every available free space in the college building with travelling shows and programming concerts in the sculpture court at lunchtime.
Pretsell died in 2005, and his work and career were the subject of a large retrospective exhibition held at Edinburgh College of Art in 2008. This show celebrated his career - and included screenprints and paintings created over a 20-year period.
His images are underpinned by a surreal sense of humour - his observations of human life - is always given an inventive and very playful edge. As you can see - his images are always unique - and they certainly exist well outside of the mainstream of Scottish Art at this time.
His use of humourous figures, and thick black outlines - they remind me a little of the work of the American artist, Keith Haring - whose work focused on street culture in 1980s New York (rather than Edinburgh!).
This is a nice large framed print by Pretsell - it is entitled The Butterfly (not quite sure if this refers to the Yoga position or the Kama Sutra!)
It is the 2nd impression lithograph taken from a very small edition of only 10 works. The image measures 47.5 x 60 cm. The frame is 58.5 x 78 cm - and is framed in a simple black frame.
It is probably a work of interest to collectors of contemporary Scottish art - and it is listed here at a very fair price for an original artwork by this unusual and currently neglected artist.
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