Contemporary Printmaking

"...most prints are produced through a distinctive set of procedures that result in distinctive appearances: woodcut displays graphic force, substantiality and a subtle sense of relief; etching and engraving offer thin and sensitive wires of ink; aquatint and mezzotint deliver soft, furry expanses of tone; lithography, the flattest of the standard techniques, can provide crumbly, chalky lines or diaphonous washes.

...these properties... continue to be essential to the way artists work.

...many artists continue to be drawn to printmaking by the variety and beauty of the surfaces it can produce, or by some peculiar affinity for the physical and material demands of the medium.

Painters, such as Motherwell and Newman, exploited the painterly liquidity of lithography, and the translucent clarity of ink on paper (so different from that of paint on canvas). More draftsmanlike artists, such as Jim Dine, revelled in the linear riches of and tactility of etching, while sculptors such as Donald Judd or Joel Shapiro utilised the concrete materiality of woodblocks."

The Contemporary Print, Susan Tallman, (1996) Thames and Hudson, P.8

"Many of the best known works by some of the world's greatest artists are prints (one thinks of Durer, Rembrandt and Goya).

Printmaking's unique possibilities, arising from the interaction between ink and paper, produce aesthetic effects unrealisable in any other way. These beauties, as with any aesthetic quality, may not be immediately apparent, but the eye will soon be educated into their appreciation by an attentive study of fine impressions.

Thus the great prints of the world are not reproduced drawings but works of art deliberately created through the medium of printing."

Prints and printmaking, Anthony Griffiths, (1996) British Museum Press, p.9-10

Please go to the Glossary for more details of contemporary printmaking techniques and terminology.