Internet: The full name of the artist is Marcus Rees Roberts. Following his degree in English at Cambridge, Marcus Rees Roberts studied Film Theory at the Slade School of Fine Art, where he wrote his thesis on German Expressionist Cinema. He then completed a second post-graduate course in printmaking at the Slade. In 1977 he was awarded the Slade Prize and appointed teaching assistant in printmaking. In 1980 he moved to Scotland to lecture at Edinburgh College of Art. In 1982 he was appointed Visiting Professor at the University of Central Florida and in 1989 as Lecturer in charge of Printmaking at Edinburgh College of Art, a post he held until 1995, when he returned to live and work in London. Rees Roberts has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad; venues include the Portland Art Museum (International Print Exhibition), Oregon; University of Central Florida, Orlando; Hodges Taylor Gallery, Charlotte, North Carolina; The Slade Gallery, London; The Strang Print Room at University College London; Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery; Steven Harris, New York City; New York Print Fair at the Park Avenue Armory, The London Original Print Fair at the Royal Academy of Arts; The Sussex Barn Art Gallery at West Dean College and Edition: 100 years of British Printmaking at the SW1 Gallery, London. His work is in a number of collections, including the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum; University College London; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Blackburn Museum; Scottish Arts Council; Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. He is currently (2010) Visiting Lecturer at West Dean College, West Sussex, England. Personal email communication from Roberts March 2010: NOTES for THE TIREDNESS part 1: The Tiredness Part 1 was the first of four parts in this series of etchings (1981-83). The subtitle was 'Based on a second-rate novel'. My idea was to make the plates the size of a 6" x 4" paperback book and the fragments of text were from an imaginary re-telling of Don Juan. In parallel with this were the faded images from newspapers of the victims of the Yorkshire Ripper. (He was a serial killer who, at the time, was prowling the dark backstreets of the decaying industrial towns of northern England and murdering prostitutes). My idea was not to contrast Don Juan (a lover of women) with The Yorkshire Ripper (a destroyer of women), but to suggest that there was misogyny in both and that there is a disturbing continuum between them. By implication, I was alluding to misogyny in all men. I began Part 1 in Edinburgh in 1981. Parts 2, 3, and 4 were made in Florida between 1982 and 1983, when I was Visiting Professor in Printmaking at UCF in Orlando. To make these parts, I photocopied the images of Part 1, and photo-etched them onto new copper plates, which I then re-worked. I then did the same again - photocopied Part 2 and re-worked them on new plates for Parts 3 and 4. I liked using photocopies because of their roughness and the distortions they gave. The images become darker and darker in these later sections, as Don Juan approaches hell. I wanted this series of etchings (about 36 in total) to be inexpensive and available to everyone, rather like the English prints of the 18th and early 19th Century. I was going to charge only the cost of the paper and ink, selling each print for about £1. (It didn't work. Your Archive bought Part 1, the Victoria and Albert Museum bought Parts 3 and 4, and, I think, that was it - apart from someone who wanted to buy the complete set in installments, at a discount. He took the prints, paid one installment, and then disappeared.) I think I printed about ten sets initially. I wanted The Tiredness to be an open edition, therefore there are no edition numbers. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.