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A Collector's Guide to Prints
What is a fine print?
A fine print is the result of a joint collaboration between a print workshop and an artist. Generally the artist has created an original piece of art for this purpose and is personally involved throughout the printing process. It's from this artwork that each individual print, or "impression," is hand-printed, often by the master printer at the workshop.
The origins of fine printmaking
European printmaking traces its origins to the 1500s. The first rudimentary printmakers were actually silversmiths who printed their metal engravings -- on swords, breastplates, belt buckles, and so forth -- by coating the metal with ink or paint, and then transferring the image, using pressure, to paper or fabric.
Some of the earliest fine art printmakers were also silversmiths, or grew up among them. For instance, Albrecht Dürer, the great 16th-Century German printmaker, was the son of a silversmith. He went on the be one of the most important printmakers of all time, and many scholars would agree that his work has never been surpassed in terms of beauty, execution, and innovation.
Durer worked in engraving and woodcut, two of the most common techniques in fine printmaking. Other relates and different printmaking methods that followed, include lithography, mezzotint and silkscreen.
The three great periods of fine printmaking
Fine prints are generally categorized in one of three periods: Old Master, Modern, and Contemporary.
Old Master fine prints date back as early as the 16th Century, when Albrecht Dürer, Martin Schoengauer, and Marantonio Raimondi were experimenting with engraving, woodcut, and some etching techniques. By the 17th Century, artists such as Lucas van Leyden, Jacques Callot, and even Rembrandt employed these same techniques, often with more consistent and higher-quality results. Through the 18th and 19th Centuries, etching became the predominant printmaking method, as shown in prints by Charles Meryon, Goya, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and others.
The age of Modern prints dates from the late 19th Century through the early to mid-20th Century. During this period, printmaking was embraced as an art form by Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Escher, Käthe Kollwitz, and others -- who made great strides with new techniques (such as lithography) while continuing to work with some old ones (including woodcuts).
By the mid-20th Century, Contemporary artists emerged, many of whom delved into a wide range of techniques -- including lithography, etching, linocuts, and woodcuts -- and also explored the boundaries of what we define as art. As with some of the great printmaking artists who preceded them, the best-known Contemporary artists are also well-known for their work on canvas and other media, and include Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, Andy Warhol, Richard Diebenkorn, Wayne Thiebaud, Sam Francis, and Jasper Johns.
Many experts are watching with interest as contemporary artists such as Francisco Clemente and David Hockney experiment with digital printmaking. Such prints are generated directly from a computer to an ink jet, thermal transfer, or other kind of digital printer. The collectability of digital prints is still very much in dispute, most importantly because the jury's still out on whether digital prints will hold their colors over time--or fade dramatically, taking their value with them.
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