The Caversham Press was established in 1985, by Malcolm Christian in the picturesque Caversham Valley just outside Howick, South Africa. The location of Caversham signalled that The Press was to be an unconventional player in the art world. It was not situated in an urban metropolis but in the countryside in an old, decommissioned Wesleyan Methodist Church on a hill above the rushing Lions River.
Malcolm Christian converted the church into the studio and built family home from recycled material s from demolishers. The garden is a peaceful space incorporating the graveyard Headstones. At first The Caversham Press echoed Western models, providing technical support and facilities to individual artists wishing to make prints for their own exhibitions, while commissioned portfolios such as the Johannesburg Centenary Print Portfolio (1986), were produced for articular events
After the first exhibition, Five Years at The Caversham Press (1990; eighty works by 26 artists) a change of direction occurred: Malcolm Christian decided to formulate workshop themes and invite a wide range of artists to contribute to Caversham concepts. He had already begun reaching out beyond the framework of trained artists and was running workshop programmes with artists in township communities. His premise was that interaction and dialogue were the foundation of collaboration, itself a process intrinsic to print production in which a master printer assumes a prominent role. Over the past 27 years at the Caversham Press Malcolm Christian has work with the likes of many prominent artists, both local and international
