About The Artist
Michael Potter Studio presents a collection of art posters and limited edition photographic prints. Michael's diverse artistic career spans over fifty years, and his work features everything from representational line drawings, bold screen prints, abstract colour-scapes and in his later years, photography.
In homage to his vision to offer exceptional art to a wider audience, this rare archive of art work is now available as framed or unframed posters. Runs of limited editions are available on a first-come basis. These are announced ahead of public release to subscribers. To enquire for bespoke requests use the contact page or inquire directly via Atelier Editions Limited.
Michael studied Renaissance Art in Florence, Italy in 1969 before attending Ealing Art College, London. Work as a travel photographer was seasonal, so he continued to paint and illustrate for magazines and newspapers on the side.
At the time the techniques for printing were very simple, so a common preference for illustration was rotring ink pens for technical drawings. This style of work demanded accuracy and precision as it was used to showcase products to the consumer.
The seasonality of travel photography allowed Michael to continue paint and take on private commissions. Whilst framing one of these pieces for a client, Michael noticed the framers operated a screen print business in their basement. He returned to the framers to learn more about the screen printing technique and began exploring this medium of sharp, hard-edged poster production. You can learn more about the process in the video 'From Sketch to Screen Print'.
In 1980 Michael began working for Christie's Contemporary Art to producing watercolours, suitable for limited editions, art posters and art card market. By 1982 he was commission by Christie's to exhibit in London and New York. Discover the Classic Screen Prints collection from this era.
All the screen print images were produced one colour at a time across 200 sheets and the re-registered in the same place to receive the next colour. That allowed the image to be built up across however matt colour ways had been needed.
In 1983 Cadogan gallery in Knightsbridge offer Michael a show called Eating Places. Wanting to test the American market, Michael packed up his life in London and spent a year travelling across the States. Painting as he travelled, he captured all sorts of Americana eateries and restaurant scenes, exhibited the work in Spring of 1985 - all the work sold out.
Shortly after this Christie's Contemporary Art wanted exclusivity of Michael's art and commissioned 50 original works per year for world-wide exhibitions, showcased in London, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo & Paris. This demanded a bigger studio space. Michael moved to Suffolk for and built a studio to devote himself to this project. The work moved from the hard edges graphic screen prints like 'Ski-er' (above) and the tennis series to the architectural watercolour scenes, like those in the Mediterranean Nostalgia collection.
In 1990 recession hit and Christie's payroll stopped. Michael returned to London and started the gallery Walton Contemporary Art in Knightsbridge where his own work was showcased as well as becoming an agent and representing other artists and sculptors. During this time, Michael's work was widely commissioned by hotels, offices & private clients, between the UK, Hong Kong & Singapore.
Needing to diversify, Michael turned to property development. With and eye for detail and a background in art Michael pursued other creative outlets for work including property development, lighting design and consultancy for interiors.
After nearly 45 years, Michael felt creatively exhausted painting representational art, and began experimenting with abstraction. It was during this time, circa 2007, when photography piqued his interest again - having originally studied it at art college!
In the background, since the late 1980s film processing had begun moving away from wet processing with chemicals in specialised dark rooms and was becoming more accessible to the masses thorough high street processing labs. Not long after, in the around the early 2000's, the shift from analogue to digital became a revolution, removing the need for a dark room altogether.
Michael's love for photography became reignited. Here began the era of photographic workshops, travel photography developing his image bank for large scale, small volume, limited editions for Atelier Editions Limited.
In 2025 Michael Potter Studio was launched. We're glad you've joined us for the journey. More of Michael's personal stories, creative awakenings and technical insights are available on Substack.