On Wednesday, November 5th, we told you about the launch by Rockarchive of The Print Bank, a charitable trust. To recap, the esteemed Rockarchive photographers, including the award-winning Jill Furmanovsky (a familiar name to most Pink Floyd fans) have donated for auction 30 of their finest prints, to the charitable trust. All 30 images are signed by the artists in the picture as well as the photographers, and include members of the Floyd, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Police, Noel Gallagher and Oasis, Kate Bush, Brian Wilson, Madness, George Martin, Lenny Kravitz, Amy Winehouse, Bryan Ferry, Nile Rodgers, Chrissie Hynde, and many others.

Beneficiaries of the first auction will be The Teenage Cancer Trust, Shelter, Shooting Stars Hospice, and St. James Place Foundation. These images can be seen by all for just five days, until Sunday, at the Olympus Image Space Gallery and will be auctioned in their entirety in early 2015.

Brain Damage regular Chris Leith was present at the auction on Wednesday evening, managed to outbid others to win a special Pink Floyd lot that Nick Mason had donated, and wrote the following report of the event:

I was lucky enough to attend The Print Bank auction night at the Olympus Gallery, the 'pop-up' home of Rock Archive for nearly the past year, on 5th November, after an invite from Jacqui Black the Gallery manager having recently been lucky enough to purchase a signed Storm Thorgerson Pink Floyd limited edition print of the unforgettable image for the album cover of A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

Having been aware of the imminent Rock Archive collaboration and The Print Bank charity auction for 2015, with the panel of charitable organisations who will benefit, it seemed a great cause to support.

Many artists often steer away from signing material these days (David Gilmour included) sadly due to the increased forgery market and online auction sites often largely for commercial enterprise and less for the fans, so it was a delight to see such a good cause, and with many major artists offering to sign so many pieces for charity.

The list of artists Jill has worked with is almost embarrassing, and it is easy to forget that she has taken so many iconic and memorable images of Pink Floyd, including the famous Wish Were Here Here sessions at Abbey Road in 1975, which in themselves are almost holy grail level, as there are precious few images of any recording sessions across Pink Floyd's near 50-year career, and certainly in the 1970s.

Jill, who never fails to come across as anything more than one of the nicest people you could ever meet, did a short impassioned speech about how the candle is in danger of going out on rock photography as the days of film are essentially over, and due to the onslaught of differing tastes and a legacy which doesn't exist as much as say, the US Rock & Roll Fame, the British music scene has no official archive and given how British music is from 1960s onward often revered around the world, is a travesty.

The main auction of the 30 pieces is set for early 2015, but for last night, there were 5 pieces set to kick-off proceedings; signed images of The Pet Shop Boys, Chic (Nile Rodgers' favourite ever shot of the band, and it is a fabulous captured live "moment"), Squeeze, Chrissie Hynde and Noel Gallagher.

As the auction of 5 items proceeded, we found a few moments of hilarity, such as Jill shouting out "I'll just text Chrissie to mention her one sold!", and two brothers unwittingly bidding against each other (!) for The Squeeze image...

A surprise and unannounced addition to the auction, given this was not designed to be featuring any types of memorabilia, was the kind offer by Nick Mason to supply Jill with a signed T-Shirt and a pair of signed official Pro-mark Millennium II "Pink Floyd Nick Mason" drumsticks [pictured to the right; click the thumbnails]. I can only offer that on this occasion I must have been very fortunate not to be sharing the room with a huge amount of Pink Floyd fans and proceeded to win the auction (after holding off until the critical "going twice!" cry from the auctioneer) for a very reasonable figure!

Jill was very happy to chat afterward and was on good form, happily explaining the back story on some of the images adorning the walls. Fascinatingly she pointed to one, not hers, of Jimi Hendrix who is reading the lyrics on a copy of Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde LP, just before he recorded All Along The Watchtower!

All in all a very enjoyable evening, and a nice little appetiser for a certain album by a little known band quietly releasing the new album after 20 years in a few days...

The Olympus Image Space Gallery can be found just around the corner from London's Liverpool Street station, at 199 Bishopsgate (the Primrose Street entrance). You can also see the images online at theprintbank.com, where you can post an online bid now.