Fine art print business King & McGaw has been producing prints here in Newhaven for almost four decades, supplying products to some of the world’s biggest galleries and museums, as well as the general public.
We spoke to CEO Gyr King about the company’s journey, its challenges and his thoughts on Newhaven.
Tell us about King & McGaw, the history of the business and what you do.
As a company we’ve been in business for 42 years. We established ourselves in this area, having set up in Brighton originally, because we needed more space.
There wasn’t a particular ‘eureka’ moment. I was teaching Fine Art and History of Art at the time and had bought a derelict building in Brighton to renovate during the long school holidays. With my two brothers we began making screen prints in the bare empty space, producing our own work and artist friends’ work. Suddenly we had a business – I flew to New York to show at an art fair and we began selling prints worldwide, and that grew into more publishing.
Mainly in those days we were a wholesale business selling to galleries and international distributors, long before the internet existed. We began developing and producing more and more products for museums and artists. Like lots of businesses our development was embryonic and found its own life. I stopped teaching a year after starting the business.
Today we sell many hundreds of thousands of prints. Our retail website has more than 12,000 different images available as paper or bespoke framed prints and represents many major artists, rising stars and artists’ estates. The site offers open, limited and rare editions. A separate part of the business supplies museums and heritage sites with many varied stationery products as well as fine art prints. We are unique as we are completely vertically integrated as a manufacturer, publisher, printer, and framer – the entire high-quality product is created here in Newhaven.
When and why did you decide to move the business to Newhaven?
We’ve been in Newhaven just under 35 years – it was a great place to find much needed space and we now operate in over 40,000 square feet of workshops, offices and design studios to accommodate our highly skilled teams. We employ between 80 and 100 staff with about 40% living in Newhaven.
How is business doing currently?
Business is good – there have been a few curveballs in recent years with Covid and Brexit, but we’re well established, we’re careful and we try to be as environmentally friendly as possible. We try to be as green as we can and are always looking at ways to improve how we do things to reduce our carbon footprint. We can only be as good as the people who work in the business, so respecting and looking after our staff is a number one priority and part of running a modern business.
Are there any exciting plans for the future you can share with us?
The business is growing. This year we will be opening a retail space in London to help showcase our products, the quality of which is sometimes difficult to show online. One of my sons, Tyron, joined the business a year ago and is injecting new ideas into our portfolio.
What has been the most challenging period of your career?
I’d say Brexit. I feel that many politicians failed to fully understand the consequences of removing us from the single market with access both to duty and paper free customers and skilled labour from Europe. Many of our staff members are originally from the EU, they are loyal and have been with us a long time. Finding skilled staff is always a challenge, so being able to source from a larger market is helpful – this augments the brilliant British staff by having a bigger range of options, which has ceased since Brexit.
Selling products on the internet to individual customers in Europe is now almost impossible with the extra duty and bureaucracy.
Tell us about sponsoring the Turner Prize at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne last year.
Hosting the Turner Prize was a massive boost for Towner, for Eastbourne and the wider area. This is a strong and growing part of the country for the arts – there’s lots going on and we work closely with many local arts organisations. We try to be as beneficial to as many local cultural organisations as we can through sponsorship and pro bono products.
Covid created challenges for cultural institutions. Hosting the Turner Prize last year was an opportune moment to do something positive for both Towner and the area. Finding significant sponsorship can be challenging for any gallery so we were pleased to help, and I think the benefits for the area will continue.
What can you tell us about Newhaven’s growing art scene? Why do you think it attracts creative people?
If you look historically at locations where artists collectively find studios and work, inexpensive space is always an important factor – this happened in New York in the 60s and East London in the early 21tst century. Inexpensive space is part of the reason, assisted also by the local councils, including Lewes and Eastbourne who have been very pro the arts and encouraging the thoughtful use of brown field sites.
The area with the sea and the south Downs has always been a source of inspiration for artists, even before Ravilious. I also think ports are especially inspirational places to be near, suggesting travel and adventure!
How would you describe Newhaven?
I think Newhaven has masses of potential. It’s an energetic place that still retains industry, both established and new. There is a feeling of freedom here, I can’t really explain why. Getting to the next stage is about how that energy and creativity gets used.
What’s your favourite place in Newhaven? Tell us what you love about the town.
We have part of the top floor at the Marine Workshops – the beautiful Grade II-listed warehouse that was brilliantly renovated a few years ago – and we have a wonderful design studio there, so that’s my favourite inside space. Drinking a coffee and looking out at the view is uplifting, no matter the weather. I do also like standing at the bottom of the Marine Workshops and looking up towards the ferry too. Walking along the West Quay, and looking out to sea is very special, magic!
We do an annual softball game at Newhaven’s football ground – the team there are brilliant, and they perform an amazing service to the whole community with many different teams. What they do sums up Newhaven: a lot of helpful, lovely people.
What do you think makes Newhaven a great place to base a business?
There are many stable businesses in Newhaven who are well established and provide security. There is space and it’s generally not too expensive. It has a sound local workforce and people can travel to Newhaven from neighbouring places like Brighton with relative ease, plus, there are train links to London. We are also fortunate that most of our buildings have off-street parking here – in Brighton I used to get parking tickets galore!
What would you like Newhaven’s future to look like in 10 years’ time?
I’d like to see significant investment in the A26 road coming down to Newhaven, making it safer. I think it would be terrific to see the river used more to transport too – barges unloading at the incinerator? Many of the industrial buildings are old – it would be game-changing if more contemporary and greener buildings replaced the old stock. I think we could make more use of the ferry and the port too. It’s one of the oldest channel crossings.
I hope the town continues its regeneration – you need cohesion though. Regeneration doesn’t just mean more coffee shops! There needs to be well employed people to use them. We could certainly improve the town landscaping and improve public spaces, with better provision for pedestrians, and somehow sort out the endless traffic jams going south towards the station. It’s coordination that’s needed.
What would you like Newhaven Enterprise Zone to spend its funding on in the town? Creating more commercial space, more cultural events which make Newhaven a better place to live and work in, support for businesses to help them grow or something else entirely?
It’s expensive to keep old buildings going, so if money could be spent on upgrading the building stock, as seems to be done more in Europe – with grants to seriously improve energy efficiency, sustainability and facilities. These are not cheap things to do but they’re hugely beneficial to the area, the workforce and the prosperity of businesses. Businesses being able to tap into useful resources and match funding would be helpful.
I think events are important but can’t be done in isolation from everything else. There should be a longer-term road map that incorporates what can be done in the short-term and linking it to a more complete direction of travel. I’d love to see changes that make people think ‘wow’, that’s an amazing building, or an innovative way of dealing with traffic. That would make the residents here feel proud too. Do things that exceeds people’s expectations.
The reason I love the Marine Workshops is it is a fantastic renovation, turning an unwanted, completely derelict warehouse into a very beautiful building. It would be wonderful if Newhaven had a permanent building for events there too. There is so much opportunity – it needs to be grasped.
Read more of our Q&As here.
