The life of a remarkable artist and pioneering inventor who lived and worked in Lancaster more than a century ago will be celebrated this year.
2026 marks the centenary of Karel Klic’s death.
Klic, originally from Bohemia which is now the Czech Republic, is little known in Lancaster even though he played a really significant part in the city’s industrial life in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.
Mirador, a Lancashire-based arts and heritage charity, will raise awareness of Klic’s remarkable life and work by running a year-long programme of exciting activities and interesting events involving people of all ages and abilities.
The project entitled 'Copy That - The Revolution in Photomechanical Printing' - will culminate with an exhibition at The Storey Gallery in Lancaster in November, exactly a century since Klic’s death.
Klic invented photogravure printing, a process for reproducing high quality images, which brought art to the masses after joining forces with the Lancaster-based company, Storey Brothers, renowned for producing oil cloth.
Together, they established the Rembrandt Intaglio Printing Company based in Queen’s Mill, now the site of Lancaster’s Aldi in Aldcliffe Road.
Using Klic’s photogravure method Rembrandt Intaglio printed fine art images so that most households could afford to have art on their walls at home. The invention also revolutionised the printing of pictures in the press, in books and on postcards.
During his time in Lancaster, Klic lived in Meadowside, now part of Lancaster Medical Practice where a plaque will be unveiled later this year to celebrate the inventive former resident.
Klic was a classically trained artist himself fascinated in capturing likenesses and among his many oil paintings of prominent Lancashire people is a portrait of Sir Thomas Storey which is displayed in Lancaster City Museum.
Mirador has been granted £91,430 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to mark the centenary
“Thanks to National Lottery players, Mirador will be able to deliver multiple, fun and lively creative opportunities for people of all ages that will reflect the ground-breaking work in Lancaster that Klic achieved with the copying process," said George Harris, Mirador co-founder and creative producer.
"Klic and the Storey Brothers revolutionised the idea of art for everyone and our programme will live up to that ambition.”
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