Welcome
to the land of potentially-baffling terminology! There
are many kinds of prints. The distinctions between them are important
and involve appearance, desirability and value, but those same
distinctions can make this area of art seem especially confusing.
We aim to help clarify it.
Almost
always, “prints” are artworks created as multiples.*
However, “antique” prints aren’t always “fine”
and vice versa.
Let’s
look first at posters. You might not own an original Georgia O’Keeffe
(neither do I), but perhaps you have one of the many Santa Fe
Opera posters that incorporated her work. Going down a step, in
their simplest form, posters are super mass-produced and
used as bonus premiums in newspapers and magazines for promotional
purposes, i.e. a large-format poster of a football star at the
start of the season. The price on these premiums is right, but
the printing and paper quality are only as good as the rest of
the newspaper, and quite a few steps below that high-quality O’Keeffe/SF
Opera poster. The freebie in the newspaper might be printed by
the 100,000s, and the opera posters by the 1000s, making quantity
another factor in their relative value.
These are the same
kinds of distinctions we look at in fine art printing: method
and source of printing, quantity produced, quality of materials,
and desirability of image. This translates as: small “editions”
(the number of identical prints produced), a hands-on rather than
fully mechanized printing process, and the fact that the artist
either produced the prints personally or was closely involved
in the process.
One of art’s
first super-stars, Albrecht Dürer, was an extensive producer
of prints. While he certainly understood that far more people
could afford these “multiples” than could afford his
one-of-a-kind oil paintings, Dürer may also have appreciated
the significantly different creative process that printing requires.
As we all know from experiences as simple as using a rubber stamp,
images for printing are worked in reverse**. This requires a different
type of thinking that many artists find intriguing, whether they
work in prints regularly or only as an occasional experiment.
Reverse-image printing
techniques are etching, engraving, lithography and block-printing
(woodcuts and lino-cuts are both forms of block-printing, and
the letters of movable type might each be considered a tiny printing
block).
A NOTE ABOUT NUMBERING—
Prints are traditionally signed and numbered
in pencil, and one way to recognize prints is to look for their
number. This is written in the form of a fraction, but the meaning
is different. For example, if a print is numbered “5/85”
it means that 85 of the prints were created, and that this one
is the 5th of those that the artist signed and numbered. The others
will be 1/85, 2/85, 3/85 and so on, through 84/85 and 85/85. The
numbers may reflect the order in which the prints were created,
but not necessarily. In the process of signing the prints, the
artist ideally discards any that don’t meet the over-all
quality of the edition. That means that a planned edition of 90
prints may end up as an edition of 85, with 5 prints discarded
for wrinkled paper, smeared ink, or some other flaw.
The notation “AP” or “A/P” stands for “artist’s
proof.” At the start of printing, the artist often experiments
with ink colors and application. Some artists mark “AP”
only on the one print from these experiments that will be the
benchmark for the rest of the edition; others sign “AP”
to any remaining prints that aren't embarrassing enough to destroy
but which don’t match the rest of the numbered edition.
ETCHING—
Here a flat metal plate is used. The whole
surface is covered with a liquid masking material, which dries
and protects the surface from unintentional scratches. Then the
image (in reverse) is scratched through. Next, etching solution
is applied and it “bites” deep lines into the exposed
metal. The masking material is removed. Ink is applied to the
entire plate and then wiped off the surface, but the ink remains
down in those etched lines. Damp paper is laid against the plate
and then this plate-and-paper sandwich is run through the press.
The press pushes the paper down hard enough to pick up the ink
in the etched lines. Characteristically, etchings have plenty
of fine line work, similar to pen-and-ink. Often you can see a
faint remnant of the wiped ink on the unetched portions of the
plate, and see the outer edge of the plate indented into the paper.
There are other techniques used in etching to yield different
textures to the plate, but they are variations on the basic method:
ink waiting just below the plate’s surface for paper to be
pressed down into it.
Etching by Luigi Lucioni
see larger detail
Metal etching plate by Lyman Byxbe
see larger detail
LITHOGRAPH—
“Litho” means stone, and these prints
were traditionally created on thick stone “plates.”
The stone was prepared by cutting it into a thick, flat block-shape,
with one side clean and absolutely smooth. Then the artist drew
the image on the stone in reverse using a wax- or grease-based
crayon or ink. Again, an etching process was employed, here to
seal the waxiness or greasiness into the stone. To print the image,
the stone was first wiped over lightly with water, then ink was
immediately applied with a roller. Just like the separation you
see in an oil-and-vinegar salad dressing, the water avoided the
wax/grease-drawn areas, and the ink avoided the water, which meant
that only the areas originally drawn would receive ink. Again,
damp paper was placed on the plate, which was then run through
the press, where the ink transferred to the paper. Characteristically,
the line quality in a lithograph will look like pen-and-ink or
the grainier texture of a crayon.
Lithograph by Arnold Rönnebeck
see larger detail
ANTIQUE PRINTS—
Both etchings an lithographs were originally done
by hand, one print at a time. As demand and industry progressed,
some of these methods were adapted to mechanical means, i.e. lithography
was adapted to become offset litho, with giant rollers that first
wet, then ink, the modern metal lithographic plates. Many very
desirable antique prints were done with the earliest means of
mass production—hand-run printing presses, editions paid
for by subscription, with the artist over-seeing the printing
but generally not involved hands-on, and (prior to chromolithography,
which literally means “color lithography”) any coloring
added at the end by hired artists using watercolor paints. The
works of Audubon, Daumier, Curtis and many other artists in our
Antique Prints area are in this category. These editions were
undertaken specifcally for commercial purposes, while Fine Prints
tend to be produced as artistic expressions first and foremost,
with no guarantee of sales and in smaller editions.
BLOCK-PRINTING—
Block-printing is a technique accessible to hobbyists,
and if you were in scouting, you may have sampled block-printing
there. No caustic etching solutions are used, although the carving
involved still requires specialized and very sharp woodworking
tools. While a mechanical press can be used, such equipment isn’t
necessary: pressure can be applied manually using something as
simple as the back of a large wooden spoon to press the paper
against the inked plate—again, a very accessible process
for the low-tech or hobby printer.
In a wood or linoleum plate, the high surface will receive the
ink and be printed, the opposite of etching. Here, artists carve
away whatever they don’t want printed, often working progressively
and subtractively on a single piece of wood. Large solid areas
like backgrounds might be printed first, then partially carved
away to leave details in subsequent “runs” with different
colors.
Some of the most famous examples of wood block-printing come from
Japan.
Blockprint by Annie Lee Ross
see larger details
*MONOPRINT
or MONOTYPE—
These prints, as the name
indicates, are an exception to the rule that prints are created
as multiples. These one-of-a-kind works are made by painting the
desired image on a printing plate with inks, and then transferring
that image to paper. That means simply that the paper is laid
directly on the still-wet painting and pressure is applied to
transfer the ink. The artist might then print a second copy of
the image with the residue of ink that remains, but that copy
will be far fainter than the first, assuring that each print remains
one-of-a-kind.
Monoprint by Cora A. Smith
see larger details
**SILK-SCREEN
or SERIGRAPH—
This is a printing technique in which the image is NOT reversed.
A fine silk or synthetic silk fabric is stretched taut across
a box-frame. A stencil covers areas where color isn’t wanted,
then a very fine layer of ink is pressed through the open areas
of the silk and onto the paper below. Then that ink is cleaned
from the frame, another stencil put into place and the process
repeated with a new color of ink.
Silk-screen prints tend to have solid (rather than textured) areas
of color, with crisp edges dividing the colors, almost like old
paint-by-number works.
Silkscreen by Alfred Wands
see larger detail
We hope this information
helps with your print questions. E-mail us if you have questions
or would like to see close-up views of particular pieces on this
website.
