The Art of Printmaking Necessity is the mother of invention—and, in many cases, of great art. Long before the first printing press was developed, printmaking was not as much art as tool: a means of communication. Engraved visual messages—in the form of etched stones, cave-wall hieroglyphics and ancient Chinese rubbings—were the genesis of what would, over the centuries, become one of civilization’s most viable and accessible vehicles for the communication of both the routine and sublime, the everyday and the ethereal. By the mid-eighteenth century, spurred by technological advances and by the demand of a public no longer satisfied to enjoy art from afar, printmaking came into its own. Less than one hundred years later, artists were able to mass-produce their work for commercial sale, producing limited editions of original prints. In this country’s earliest days, colonial Americans imported British and European engravings, proudly displaying them as hallmarks of gentility or as testaments to a “Grand Tour.” In the 1800s, as exposure to art increased, a broader market was born. Exhibitions up and down the Eastern Seaboard provided Americans with the chance to view and even to purchase images heretofore unavailable to the public. Publishers began to circulate popular prints through periodicals, thereby exponentially increasing availability. In response to demand for display art for private homes, printmaking firms, the most famous of which was New York’s Currier & Ives, distributed decorative lithographed prints. The “Printmakers to the People” offered any number of images for sale, including current events, religion, politics, city views, home life, entertainment, and more, subjects which documented the young republic’s transformation from agricultural colony to industrialized nation. By the early 1900s, original prints were widely available through art galleries, collectors’ clubs, retail outlets, mail order and, significantly in the South, as travel mementoes. Inexpensive and easily transported, prints were ideal souvenirs for travelers touring Southern states in the first half of the twentieth century. For example, the production of prints of Charleston, South Carolina subject matter exploded during the period known as the Charleston Renaissance (1915-1940). As city leaders worked aggressively to promote tourism, Charlestonians and outsiders alike began to take notice of the “Queen of the South’s” revitalization, a revitalization that inspired local artists to record her native charms and lured artists of national reputation to her sidestreets and lowcountry vistas. The work of Carolinians such as Elizabeth O’Neill Verner, Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, Anna Heyward Taylor, Edward Jennings, John Bennett and Leila Waring was greatly influenced by the graphic art of Ellen Day Hale, Bertha Jacques, Helen Hyde and Gabrielle Clements, all of whom played pivotal roles in the 1923 formation of the influential Charleston Etchers’ Club. Beyond the urban setting, artists found picturesque and popular subject matter in the Southern vernacular. As modernization moved the country in new directions, these prints offered nostalgic views of a bygone era. The artists represented in this exhibition include native Southerners, adopted transplants and seasonal residents. Some images record once-in-a-lifetime trips through Southern climes while others point to a larger body of Southern subjects. Several artists—Thomas Hart Benton, Anthony Thieme, Palmer Schoppe and Hale Woodruff, for example—claim distinguished reputations and are especially significant to the history of art in this country; others merit only footnotes in the most generous of anthologies. They share, in some cases, only a common subject matter. But among many, there is a visceral admiration of the Southern sensibility, an admiration testified to in a myriad of prints beloved by countless viewers. The Science of Printmaking The science of printmaking, in all its complexities and technical subtleties, is one of the most misunderstood in all of art. That confusion has oftentimes served to diminish the value of prints, an unfortunate and illogical consequence. A print is “a work of art made up of ink on paper and existing in multiple examples. It is not created by drawing directly on paper, but though an indirect transfer method.” 1 A print, therefore, requires both original design in one format (a cut potato, an etched metal plate) and a tool (the printing press) that will manufacture the image on another surface (paper). This reproductive process allows numerous impressions of the same design to be produced in a specific number or “edition.” Prints produced in this manner are considered original prints, completed creative works. The advent of photomechanical, digital and other automated processes for producing prints introduced a new challenge in the understanding of prints and printmaking. Any sort of automated technology that does not rely on manual execution must be distinguished from reproductive, original prints. The works included in this exhibition are original prints representing a number of various techniques in reproductive printmaking, including etchings, lithographs, serigraphs and aquatints. A brief glossary is included here. etching: an intaglio method in which the artist uses an etching needle to draw through a waxy, acid-resistant ground that has been applied to a metal plate. The plate is then placed in an acid bath and the acid “bites,” or etches, the image into the metal. The ground is removed and the plate is inked and then wiped so that only the etched lines hold any ink. When paper is placed on the plate and run through a printing press, the pressure forces the paper into the etched lines and it picks up the ink. Etching is essentially a linear medium, in which a composition is constructed by a network of fine lines. intaglio: the general term for the metal-plate printing processes, in which the areas that hold ink are incised below the surface of the plate. drypoint: an intaglio method similar to etching but the lines are scratched directly onto a plate without the use of a ground or acid. The drypoint needle sends up rough burrs of metal on either side of the line. These burrs hold large amounts of ink and provide drypoint lines with their characteristically fuzzy appearance when printed. lithograph: a printing technique invented in 1798 in which an image is drawn with lithographic crayons on a polished slab of stone. The stone is then treated with chemicals and dampened with water so that the oil-based printing ink, when rolled, on, will adhere only where the drawing was done. Lithography is one of the most direct printmaking mediums because images are executed on a flat surface in much the same manner as crayon drawings or watercolors. It can be used to produce a variety of lines and painterly effects. woodcut:
this earliest print technique is a relief process in which an artist uses
chisels, gouges and knives to cut a design out of a plank of wood. Only
the raised areas of the block will print, while the recessed, cutaway
areas do not receive ink and appear white on the printed image. aquatint: an etching technique that creates finely textured areas of tone, giving the printed image the appearance of a watercolor. The variation in tone is achieved by repeated varnishing of the plate and multiple immersions in acid. serigraph: a form of stencil printing in which the stencil is adhered to a fine screen for support. Ink is forced through the exposed areas of the screen onto the paper. Also referred to as silkscreen. Lynne Blackman,
editor all rights reserved ________________ 1 Starr Figura, What is a Print? Online. www.moma.org/exhibitions/2001. All definitions used in the glossary portion of the catalogue are also attributed to this website and author. |