For a number of years I have been involved in the 57th Street Art Fair where my expertise in printmaking has often been called on to answer the question,” What is an original print”? Exhibitors to the fair are asked to show only “original” art and buyers usually don’t know the difference. Artists, of course, are interested in selling their work and find that Giclees of paintings can easily be sold and at the same time the painting can remain in their possession. The problem arises when artists sign and number their Giclees and do not indicate that these are reproductions. People who collect and admire prints find themselves in a total quandary as to what is an original print. The question is important because a higher monetary value is assigned to prints that are designated “limited edition,” numbered and signed by the artist. Because Giclees and other forms of digital reproduction are so readily available to artists, the question of what is original art and what is not comes up a lot.
This question is irrelevant as to the aesthetic value of the art since originality alone does not assure that one print has more quality or value than another. The potential monetary value of a print is not limited to the techniques used to create it. However, I think it is important to know the difference because it is easy to be deceived into believing that a work of art is “original” when, in fact, it is a reproduction. If the fact of its “originality” is the only criteria used in judging whether to purchase it or not, it is worthwhile to have more information on the subject.
In order to clarify the difference between original and reproduction, there are certain classifications that specify the way in which a print is made. These differences can be helpful in understanding what differentiates one kind of print from another. Printmaker’s use the term matrix to refer to the form on which the image is prepared for an “original” print. That is the single matrix contains the work and the print is the object that occurs when using a matrix to create a print.
Relief printing refers to any print that is pulled from a surface that has been treated in such a way that all negative areas have been removed. The remaining positive areas form the print surface. This is then inked with a hard roller that cannot penetrate the lowered negative surface and the image on the block is transferred to paper by pressing with a hand or tool or with a printing press. The matrix could be a wood or linoleum block, or it could be a rubbing from an uneven surface or a raised printed surface.
Lithography is based on the fact that grease and water do not mix. An image is drawn with a greasy crayon or ink on a specially treated surface, traditionally limestone, now frequently zinc or aluminum. The surface is then treated chemically to make the area touched by the crayon receptive to printing ink, while the areas left blank are kept wet to repel the ink. The printing surface is a flat plane, unlike intaglio, and this is referred to as a planographic process.
Lithography used commercially for printing is called offset lithography and is used for art reproductions and every kind of publishing.
Intaglio prints are produced by incising a design in a metal or plastic plate or by building up a design on a flat surface using modeling paste or college. A variety of mechanical and chemical methods are used to create the positive design below the original surface of the plate. Any mark on the plate’s surface will result in a positive ink transfer. Ink is forced into the incised areas of the plate and the surface of the plate is then wiped clean with cloth or paper that won’t penetrate the sub-surface lines. When a sheet of dampened paper is placed on top of the plate and soft blankets are placed on top of this it can be printed by running through an etching press under great pressure. The pressure forces the soft damp paper to press down into the incised areas and pick up the ink that remains there. The result is a series of embossed and inked shapes and lines, including the shape of the plate edge. The traditional techniques using this system are etching, engraving, aquatint, mezzotint, drypoint, and collograph.
Screen-printing or serigraphy is a stencil in which the stencil is drawn on a silk material stretched on a frame. The stencil can be made of paper, lacquer-film, lacquer resist, block-out and photo stencil.
It is generally thought that the artist alone prepares and creates the matrix. This is often the case. However, the artist could work with a collaborator who takes care of the technical issues involved in printing and generally helps the artist get their idea on to the matrix. This often happens in a print atelier.
There are instances where the artist does not work on the matrix directly but provides the design to be copied and is involved in directing the work and consulting on necessary modifications while approving the results.
In the above instances, because the artist is involved directly in the creating and printing of the matrix, and because the matrix is the sole source of the art image, I would say the prints produced would be considered “original.”
In the following instances the question of originality is brought into play.
An artist could provide the design and have no further involvement in the production of the print.
An artist might authorize the reproduction of an existing work such as a painting or drawing.
A reproduction of an existing work might be made without the artist’s permission.
A print could be made if a matrix is available but the artist has not given permission to print the work.
It has generally been believed that the point of all of these systems of printing is for an artist to create more than one nearly identical image. And it is here that the question of digital reproduction of images is most important. Also, here is where the problem of “limited edition” and signed and numbered Giclees occurs.
Usually when printing from a traditional form such as an etching, lithograph, or woodcut, the number of prints one can pull from the plate is limited in that the quality erodes as the number of prints increases. An edition of 100 prints will provide high quality prints. When there is an edition of a thousand prints it is clear that the print is a digital reproduction, even if the print says “limited edition” and is signed by the artist.
In the case of the previously discussed systems where there is a matrix from which the print is made and where the artist has involvement in the creation and printing, it is accepted that these prints are original prints.
Any reproduction without the artist’s permission is not an original print.
A reproduction of another art form such as a painting or drawing via digital means is not an original print. These digital prints are often very beautiful and are excellent reproductions or Giclees of the painting or drawing. The many objects printed by on line publishers such as the reproductions of my paintings on Zazzle http://www.zazzle.com/julier* are digital reproductions.
Of course these questions are relatively recent issues in printmaking because until the middle of the nineteenth century all prints were original because they were printed from a matrix. Many of the earliest prints we have in museums are by anonymous artists and printers but they are clearly created and printed in the traditional manner.
Finally, I’d like to mention the significance of signing and numbering prints. The earliest prints were not signed. Artists could indicate their authorship by including their signature in the matrix. Late in the nineteenth century artists began to actually sign individual prints in pencil. I believe hand signing of prints probably helped with sales because collectors then, as now, like to have the artist’s signature on the art object that they buy. As far as numbering is concerned, probably early in the 20th century, artists began to indicate the number of the print and the size of the edition, “1/200,” 12/30” etc. This shows both the number and the size of the edition. The numbering sequence usually does not reflect the order of the printing. There often are proofs and they are called artist’s proofs.
Therefore, when applied to digital reproductions, numbering is meaningless and signatures on a digital reproduction mean that the signer has approved the content of the print but this does not mean that it is an “original.”
Of course, none of the above information has anything to do with art that is created directly on a computer. In that case, there is no matrix except the hard drive I suppose. This form is original art, but because it is possible to print countless perfect copies from a disk, a system is usually in place whereby the artist agrees to erase the image from the computer after a certain number has been printed. This is new territory in art for the 21st century.
|
|
|
|
Contributor's Note
I didn't mention monotypes and monoprints and other forms of prints where each print is a unique art object and not an edition. This is a very large subject and I have covered the small amount I know about because of my many years as a printmaker.
|
|
|
|
|
