How to Identify and Buy Fine Art Prints VERTU FINE ART

CONTENTS

How to Identify and Buy Prints...... 3 Prints: A Little History...... 4 The Artists Who Influenced the Making of Fine Art Prints...... 6 How to Buy Prints...... 12 How to Identify Prints...... 14 The Experience of Buying a Fine Art Print...... 20

Cover: Alex Katz, Late Summer Flowers, 2013, 38 color silkscreen Above: Marilyn Minter, Gold Tip, 2009, C-print, 40 X 60 in., Edition of 5

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How to Identify and Buy Prints

Print artists have been pushing the envelope for in love with a fine art print and take it home. We believe hundreds of years. The prints they produce, and the that the more our clients know about what to look for in a techniques they use, reflect our culture, politics and our fine art print, the more they will appreciate what we have to social and technical evolution. Discovering the work of new oer. print artists and rediscovering the work of established Understanding the history of the art print, the skill, the artists has been one of the most exciting aspects of our processes and mechanics by which a print is created, can work at Vertu. enhance the experience of owning a print. We’ve come a Our clients, seasoned collectors and first-time art long way from the days when only kings and queens and buyers, share our enthusiasm. We want our clients to have high ranking clergymen were able to own fine art. the best experience possible when they visit our gallery, fall

Left: The Chinese Diamond Stra, the oldest known dated printed book in the world Above: Elder Subhti addresses the Buddha. Detail from the Dunhuangblock print

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Prints: A Little History

Above: The Bois Protat is considered year of Xiantong [11 May 868].” words were carved onto the same the oldest surviving woodcut in the The oldest woodcut in the Western block. Artists created multiple blocks, Western world. World was found in France. The Bois which, when printed and bound Protat, a crucifixion scene, dates back together, became block books. For hundreds of years, artists have to the late fourteenth century. Because each block had to be carved been carving, etching, engraving and Before the printing press was by hand, the artists who carved and transferring their designs onto cloth, invented, in the mid-15th century, and sold them would often only create papyrus and other surfaces. Paper printing shops took over the limited editions that they knew they was first produced in China, in 105 manufacture of books, pictures and would be able to sell. AD, which sped up the process of Most people, except the communicating through upper classes and the clergy, pictures and words, and gave print artists a wider audience. were not literate, and the The earliest dated pictures alongside the words woodcut, The Diamond Sutra had mass appeal. One of the Scroll, in which the Buddha few remaining books from the teaches how to attain era of the block book, is the enlightenment, was Apocalpysis Sancti Johannis, discovered in Turkestan. The created in Germany in 1470. Diamond Sutra is the oldest It’s a version of the Book of known dated printed book in Revelation, St. John’s idea of the world. A note at the end the Apocalypse and the war of the text reads, “Reverently between good and evil. The made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on format looks much like a behalf of his two parents on the The Apocalpysis Sancti Johannis reads like a comic book modern day comic book or with cells going from left to right. 15th of the 4th moon of the 9th graphic novel.

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White Collar by Giacomo Patri, completed in 1938 after three Yakusha-e (prints of actor) by Torii Kiyotada from the famous years of work. series "18 famous Kabuki plays played by Ichikawa's family" printed in 1895. Linoleum was first used as flooring in the 1860s and began to be used by artists, in the early 1900s, to create had previously been developed in China or Korea. Print linocuts. Linoleum is easier to carve than wood. One of technology gave artists options they hadn’t had before. the best examples of linocut work is Giacomo Patri’s They could make their work more available, and were in wordless novel, White Collar. It chronicled the eect of more demand to illustrate books, newspapers and the 1929 stock market crash on working class Americans posters for commercial use. and called for workers to stand together and unionize. As printing technology improved, and literacy began Picasso also used linocuts to create works in multiple to take hold, books were published in large quantities colors. and made available to the general public. Along with the In Japan, which was pretty much secluded from usual religious books, books with more secular themes Western influence until the mid-1800s, print artists were were illustrated and printed. making Ukiyo-e (Floating World) prints, which depicted The Industrial Revolution also gave rise to a working landscapes, theatre and other pleasures of Japanese life, class that could aord to decorate their walls, not just while ignoring the mundane, everyday events. When with the “Home Sweet Home” cross-stitch done by Aunt Westerners began traveling to Japan, Western influence Mary, but with paintings and prints created by fine began to slowly take hold, influencing a whole new artists. generation of print artists. The printing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg in Germany around 1450, was faster than any press that

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The Artists Who Influenced the Making of Fine Art Prints

Honore Daumier, Gargantuan, 1931

In the late 1800s, print artists had book of Charles Perrallt’s Mother Goose Tales become part of popular culture through their is still reprinted, from the French, in many works in books, newspapers and advertising languages today. prints. Honore Daumier spent six months in jail for the lithograph, Gargantua, which mocked Gustave Dore, 1864,In the wood Little Red Riding Louis-Phillipe’s excesses while the majority Hood met the old Father Wolf. of the French population struggled to make ends meet. One the bright side, Daumier’s popularity soared and his career took o. One of the greatest book illustrators of all time was Gustave Dore, whose illustrated

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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Aubrey Beardsley A Comedy lithographs, of the Montmartre night of Sighs, 1894, lithograph and clubs of Paris, were often letterpress commissioned by club owners to be used as advertisements. He was greatly influenced by the Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints. In 1989, Lautrec’s lithograph, Moulin Rouge also painting and printing at the sold for £143,250. Today it would turn of the nineteenth century. probably sell for more than The deaths of his mother and £500,000. fifteen-year-old sister had a Influenced by both the profound influence on his work. A woodcuts of Japan and the art of version of his iconic painting, The Toulouse-Lautrec, British artist, Scream, oil on wood, sold at Aubrey Beardsley, created some of auction for a record $119.9 the most influential works of the Art million. It was one of four that Nouveau era. Beardsley died at age Munch had painted. Munch’s 25, so finding an original drawing or woodcuts and lithographs also lithograph is a collector’s dream. A reflect his pensive, thoughtful pen and ink drawing, The Climax, style and have had a profound sold at auction in 2011 for $213,300. impact, not just on other artists, In Norway, Edvard Munch was but on our culture.

Henri de Toulouse Lautrec. Divan Japosais,1892, Edvard Munch, Melancholy, Woodcut,1898 Lithograph printed in four colors on wove paper

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Pablo Picasso Jacqueline in a Black Hat,1962. Color linocut on Arches cream wove paper with Arches watermark.

Picasso was one of the most inventive and prolific produced lithographs, aquatints and etchings that are printmakers of the twentieth century. In the fifties and sought after by collectors today. Authenticating a Picasso sixties, he worked with master printer Hidalgo Arnera, in lithograph is an art in itself, so buying his work from a Arnera’s studio in the south of France, to create elegant reputable gallery or auction house is critical. multi-layered linocuts. Besides his paintings, Picasso also

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Rene Magritte, Advertisment for "Norine", 1925

Salvador Dali, Ivanhoe/Four Piece Suite, 1978

Another surrealist who influenced pop culture, and whose larger-than-life persona is as well-known as his work, is Salvador Dali. Dali worked in almost every media, including film. Dali produced more than 1500 paintings in his lifetime. He also created numerous drawings, illustrations, sculptures, short films, books and lithographs. Dali’s Bullfight #3 lithograph sold at auction a few years ago for more than $80,000 and there are legendary stories about his work being found in grandma’s basement or at thrift shops. Best known as a painter, Belgian banknotes as well as works by There are many collectors around the artist Renee Magritte, whose work Picasso and other artists. Magritte world who focus only on Dali art influenced pop, minimalist and worked as a draftsman in a wallpaper prints, and some are truly expert at conceptual artists, was a great print factory and designed posters and authenticating his work, but it’s still artist. So great, in fact, that after World advertisements until 1926, when he best deal to with a museum or trusted War ll, when times were tough in began to work in the surrealist style gallery if you’re thinking about Europe, he made a living forging he’s best known for. purchasing one of his art prints.

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Paris was a hot spot for artists in Robert Rauschenberg, from the Stoned the years before and after World War ll. Moon Series, 1969, Lithograph American artists flocked to Paris to soak up the culture and get inspiration. After the war, artists invited, by NASA, to watch the launch began to flock to New York. Roy of Apollo ll. As a tribute to the launch, Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, he created a series of lithographs, Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns, four of called the Stone Moon Series. the greatest American print artists of Andy Warhol is an American icon, the twentieth century, created works whose work is all about American that still influence artists today. icons. Warhol was a master of the Lichtenstein was fascinated by screenprint. His color lithograph, I comic books when his was a kid. His Love Your Kiss Forever, done in 1964, work is fun and powerful and created sold earlier this year for $112,500. a lot of controversy. In 1964, a Life Magazine article was captioned, Is He the Worst Artist in the World? The Andy Warhol, Marilyn - Castelli answer is, obviously, No, he was one Graphics Invitation, 1981, Screenprint, of the best. Lichtenstein’s Bull Profile 7 X 7 in., Hand signed in black marker

Roy Lichtenstein, The Student, 1980 Woodcut w/embossing on Arches cover paper

Series 1973, sold at a Manhattan gallery for $225,000. Robert Rauschenberg pioneered the use of dierent materials in his prints. His work is unmistakably American. Interested in art and science, Rauschenberg was personally

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Top Left: Jasper Johns, Periscope 1 - 1979, Lithograph Top Right: Damien Hirst, Escalation, 2012, 2-inch Woodcut Spot Bottom Right: Yue Minion, Laughing w/Horns from the Grasslands Series, 2008, Woodcut

Jasper Johns was born and raised in the South, which Flag, done in 1954, was sold in 2010, at a Christie’s auction may explain his very American paintings and prints of the for $28.6 million. American Flag, maps and targets. Johns said he began These great print artists have influenced the artists who drawing at age three, although he wasn’t exposed to art or are working today, pushing the envelope in the world of artists while growing up in South Carolina. In 2011, Johns print and mixed media, like Damien Hirst and Yue Minjun, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His painting, who mix contemporary ideas and technology with traditional artistry.

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How to Buy Prints

Vertu Fine Art in Boca Raton Florida. VFA has maintained focus for over 15 years on the luminaries of Pop, Abstract Expressionism and Optical Art. The gallery specializes in editions and multiples.

You don’t have to be an art as much information as you can about historian or a museum curator to buy a the artist, take a look on-line to see if great art print. All it takes is love and the artist is listed in any publications, money and a willingness to ask a lot of has had grants or awards bestowed questions. on them and if their work has been Gallery owners, directors and included in public or private gallery sta are lovers of art, who like collections. The artist’s website is a to be surrounded by works of art and good resource but other websites that who want to support artists. Buying a mention the artist, and have no vested piece of art in a gallery where the sta interested in the artist’s work, are even is welcoming, enthusiastic about what better. they are selling and willing to share Meeting local print artists is information with you about the art and always interesting, especially if you’re artists they exhibit, is a great place to interested in owning their work, so ask start. the gallery sta for information about Seeing a piece of art work that openings and exhibits where the evokes enough emotion in you to artists might be in attendance or just make you want to own it, is usually ask for an introduction. how it all begins, and it’s a good first Willem de Kooning, Untitled III from Quatre Having basic knowledge about the step. Lithographies - 1986, Color Lithograph, artist will give you a better idea of the The next step is to get as much 28.25 X 24.75 in., Edition of 100 fair price of their work. Ask about the information as you can about the provenance of the art. Established artist and the artist’s work, from the body of work is like, where they have artists’ work may have a more gallery sta and from your own exhibited in the past, where they have interesting history than a new artist, research, to help you decide if the art studied and who else owns their work who brought the art print from his or print is worth the asking price. are questions that the gallery sta her studio right over to the gallery, but Knowing who the artist is, what their should be able to answer for you. Get it’s always good to ask.

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Take a look at the back, front and sides of the print, to make sure that it will continue to look as good when you take it home as it does in the gallery. An art print should be carefully mounted and framed so that it is protected from dust and light and retains the original texture of the work. Even museum pieces have been damaged by someone placing masking tape on the back of a print and having its imprint seep through to the front. If the piece is behind glass, the print should Andy Warhol, Silkscreening. not be pressed up against the Warhol on the silkscreening process: “With silkscreening, you pick a photograph, blow it up, glass. transfer it in glue onto silk, and then roll ink across so that the ink goes through the silk but not through the glue. That was the way you got the same image, slightly different each time. It was all A seller should be able to so simple—quick and chancy. I was thrilled with it. My first experiments with screens were heads tell you a lot about the print of Troy Donahue and Warren Beaty, and then when Marilyn Monroe happened to die that month, I you’re buying, like how and got the idea to make screens of her beautiful face—the first Marilyns.” (Warhol 220). when it was made, how many prints exist and how it was authenticated. Find out if the print you want to buy is a style done by the artist for a particular length of time, how long the artist worked in that style and if there are multiple other prints that look like the one you want. After you’ve researched the art and the artist, you’ll have more information to help you to determine if the asking price is fair. If all the information you’ve gotten makes you feel comfortable about buying it and you know the seller is asking a fair price, a price you can aord, then go ahead and get it. If you think the seller is asking a fair price, but it’s out of your price range, you might want to consider saving up enough to buy it. It’s better to own an art print that you love, than a print that you are just settling for, especially if you are going to see it on your wall every day. Every seller of fine art prints, whether a gallery owner or a private seller, has purchased each print as an Tom Wesselmann, Nude, 1981, investment, hoping it maintains, or increases in value, Screenprint, 35.75 X 36.75 in. over time. Even if you think you will never sell your art Edition of 150 print, you want to enjoy it and see its value increase. Like buying a home, an art print is something that you want to take pleasure in for a long time. Unlike a home, you can take it with you. 13 VERTU FINE ART

How to Identify Prints

a monotype, the artist has just one Linocut/Linoleum Cut- a linocut chance to get it right. is carved and printed in the same Art gallery sta can explain the manner as a woodcut, but the matrix fundamentals of identification, but is a piece of linoleum, or a piece of having some basic knowledge about linoleum mounted on a block of wood. the technique by which a print is To identify a linocut, take a look at produced, gives you a better an area of the print where a small understanding of its quality and value. patch of printed ink is surrounded by a Here are some basic terms and larger area of white. When the block is techniques for identifying fine art pressed on to paper, pressure on the prints: raised, inked surface of the block Matrix - the base from which a pushes the ink into a rim around each print is made. Just as a woodblock is printed area. This is known as an “ink the base for a woodcut, a matrix can squash,” and sometimes you have to be made of almost anything from a look very closely at the print, Jim Dine, A Night Woodcut, 1982, Woodcut metal plate, a piece of linoleum, a sometimes with a magnifying glass, to stone or a potato. see the squash. The variation of line, especially on the right side of the image and the upper left hand Relief Printing - an image printed corner, are indications of the artist carving, from the raised or uncut part of a rather than painting, the lines. matrix. Woodcuts and Linocuts are examples of Relief Printing. Woodcut - an image is drawn on Having some knowledge about block of wood and every part of the what to look for when buying a fine art wood surface, except the lines of the print adds to the appreciation of the image, are carved away, leaving the work. When you see a print in a lines of the imaged raised. Ink is gallery, it’s complete, hanging in a applied to the raised areas of the frame, looking pristine. You might note block and pressed on to a sheet of some fine detail or a color that ‘pops’ paper to create a print. but understanding the process that When identifying a woodcut, look went into getting that detail or getting at the quality and variety of the line, that color to ‘pop’ can make you especially where they intersect or appreciate it even more. Print artists form a dark pattern in the background Nicola Lopez Earth, Water, Fire and Air, 2008, not only have to work hard when they of the print. When you look closely at Suite of four etchings with carborundum create their original design, but have the pattern of lines formed by the collograph, woodcut and collage to make a leap of faith when they print, you can see where the lines produce a print. They have to envision touch, intersect or almost intersect in Carborundum - Carborundum is what the work on the metal plate, a characteristic way not found in the trade name for silicone carbide, block of wood, stone or piece of drawn or painted lines. which when mixed with glue, can be plastic is going to look like when it’s In the woodcuts of some print used to draw on a stone or metal transferred to a piece of paper and run artists, like Edvard Munch, the grain of plate. When printed, it can create a through a press. Even if a work is the wood is visible, making raised, textured surface on the printed etched in metal, the plate has only a identification simpler. paper. This is often called a limited printing life and with a work like collography plate, although a

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collograph can also be produced by expose the metal underneath the more delicate and elegant lines than using other media, like coee, walnut ground. The plate is then placed in a that of an etching. The engraver does shells and cardboard to create a relief pan of acid that eats into the lines the not have to deal with the acid process, eect. artist has exposed. The plate is so the printing process is easier, Intaglio - unlike relief printing, removed from the acid bath and the although engraving takes a lot of care where the printed surface is raised, the acid-resistant ground is removed. The and precision. matrix of an intaglio print is cut, the ink entire plate is inked, the ink pushed A formal clean-edged line is more placed in the cuts, and the cut-out into the lines that were made by the characteristic of an engraving than an lines are printed. Etching, engraving, artist and deepened by the acid. The etching. The front of a $5 bill is an drypoint, aquatint and mezzotint are ink is wiped o the surface of the example of engraving. The green seal examples of the intaglio process. plate. A sheet of damp paper is placed and serial numbers are printed in relief, Burr - when an engraving tool is onto the plate and run through an but everything else is engraved. used to cut into a metal plate, small etching press that forces the paper Drypoint - The artist draws pieces of metal are raised up on both into the etched lines to pick up the ink. sides of the engraved line to form a burr. The burr that is created holds additional ink and adds to the texture of the print. The pressure of the printing press wears down the burr, so that the intensity created by the extra amount of ink in the burr is decreased with each impression made.

Edward Hopper, Evening Wind, 1921, Etching

Because of the rounded tool cutting through the waxy surface to Pablo Picasso, Jeune Couple Accroupi, the plate, the lines of an etching are l'Homme avec un tambourin, Ref: Bloch often more soft-edged than sharp, 212, 1930-37, Etching & drypoint engraved lines. The tool also causes wax to fall into the etched line, so that directly on the matrix with a sharp on some etchings there are white carbide-tipped steel needle or marks on dark lines that are a result of diamond-tipped needle. the waxy, acid-resistant material falling The matrix was traditionally a Portrait of master engraver Jan Sadeler with into the grooves. The pressure of the copper plate, but now artists use zinc, burin in hand, circa 1572. etching press produces a build-up of plexiglass and acetate plates. The ink along the edge of a line, causing sharp tool produces a high burr that Burin - a steel tool used for visible ridges of ink. It sometimes creates characteristically feathery engraving. takes a look with a magnifying glass to lines, with a fine white center, when Etching - a metal plate is covered see the textures and anomalies in an printed. Because the burr is worn with a waxy, acid-resistant ground. etching. down by each run through the press, The artist draws through the ground Engraving - A burin is used to the plate will last only through a few with an etching needle, like a burin, draw directly onto a plate. The burin, impressions before losing its soft lines. but with a more rounded point, to with its v-shaped edge, can create

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begun with an engraving on a metal or zinc plate, which is the covered with a ground that is acid resistant. The ground is usually resin, but can also be tar-based, like asphalt or pitch. The ground material can be spread on the plate as a dry dust and then melted to stick to the plate, creating irregular patterns or it can be dissolved in alcohol and poured over the plate in a more regular pattern. The artist can control the tone of the print by varying the amount of time the plate is exposed to acid. The artist can also add elements to the work between acids baths, to create fine lines. A flecked or grainy look, created by the type of ground used, is characteristic of an aquatint. Planographic Print - A planographic print is printed John Baeder, Empire Diner, Mezzotint from a flat surface. Lithographs and some forms of commercial printing use the planographic process. Mezzotint - Mezzotint is one of the most complex Lithography - this process is based on the principle methods of creating an art print. It grew out of the desire that grease and water don’t mix. The matrix for creating a for artists to achieve rich shades of grey in their intaglio lithograph is a limestone slab or specially treated metal work. The earliest mezzotint prints date from the plate. The artist draws on the matrix with greasy lithograph mid-1600s. A copper plate is used as a matrix. The plate is crayons or greasy ink, called tusche. The stone is then scored with a metal tool called a “rocker” that has tiny treated with a solution that will attract greasy printers ink to teeth and is worked across the face of the plate to create the image and repel ink from blank areas. Next, turpentine small burrs to hold ink. The rocker is pushed across the or another solvent is wiped over the matrix to fix the entire plate, at dierent angles, over and over, as many as drawing. To prepare the surface for ink, the matrix is forty or more time, until the artist is satisfied that there are dampened with water, which is absorbed only by the areas enough burrs on the face of the plate to hold the amount of that have been left blank. When oil-based ink is rolled ink needed to produce the across the plate, it darkest areas of the print. The adheres to the drawn more burrs on the plate, the image but not to the wet, more ink it will hold and the blank areas. A sheet of darker the print. damp paper is placed The artist begins working over the stone or plate on the plate by leaving, and run through a press. untouched, the areas to be This creates a reverse darkest black and scraping image of the original away the other areas. The artwork. whitest and lightest areas Artists, especially are burnished down to the contemporary artists, Alex Katz, Blue Hat, 2004, Aquatint base of the plate, middle have embraced the gray areas are left higher lithographic method than the light areas. The burrs flatten with each press and because of the ease and feel of drawing and painting on a the tones become reduced, so the first mezzotint presses stone or plate (it’s more like drawing on paper than etching are the most contrasting and textured. Mezzotints can be or engraving) and because of the richness of texture and identified, not only by the texture of the print, but by the color that can be achieved through this process. toothmarks made by the rocker. The richness of tone created by the thickness of ink, Aquatint - this method is used to produce soft tones, places where inks overlap and the texture of the matrix that similar to the eect of a watercolor wash. The process is marks the surface of a work, are some of the identifiable characteristics of a lithograph.

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axed to the screen, paper in placed underneath and ink is placed across the top of the screen. A squeegee is used to push the ink through the open areas of the stencil, onto the paper. The colors of a screen print are flat, thick, usually of matt quality and slightly porous. Sometimes a hint of mesh can be seen on a print. Waxtype - a type of screenprinting

Takashi Murakami, And Then-Golden DOB, 2007, Offset Lithograph

Oset Printing - In this method, the image the artist has made on a stone or plate is not printed directly Damien Hirst, For the Love of God- from the matrix, but first transferred to Lenticular, 2012, Digital print of PETG plastic a rubber oset cylinder and then to paper, so that the image faces the Giclée - giclée prints (pronounced same way as the original. This method zhee-klay, from the French verb glicer, is advantageous when colors are meaning to squirt, are produced by ink used, since it’s easier to run a paper jet printers. It is a method used to through an oset press with accuracy, reproduce two-dimensional work. The than it is to lower the paper over the print technology allows artists, who inked plate. choose to use giclée, to retain color Photolithography - a photo- accuracy and sharpness of the Robert Indiana, The Bridge, 1983, lithograph is produced in much the original work. Artists, like Damien Screenprint same way as a lithograph, but the Hirst, have taken this technology in a image is transferred to the stone or way that only a fine print artist could where pigmented beeswax is used plate using light-sensitve emulsions. conceive of. instead of printer’s ink. Screenprint/Silkscreen - Pigment Prints - when a pigment Pochoir - pochoir is a screenprint Screenprinting is a way of using paint is used to produce a giclée, it is technique that uses a stencil, with stencils to create an image. The called a pigment print. The artist, multiple pieces, to place several colors original screens were made of silk, and Christo, used this process to into a single design. Pieces of the silk is still used by artists today, but memorialize his enormous public art stencil can be removed and replaced now they are also made of terylene projects. mesh and other materials. when not being printed. Screenprints have been used by commercial and print artists since the 1930s. Artists use the term serigraph to distinguish between commercial screenprints and artists’s screenprints. The method begins with the artist cutting a stencil from paper, card, plastic or other material. The stencil is Christo Surrounded Islands, 1980-83, 2003, 7-part leporello digital pigment print

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Photogravure/Photo-Etching - this technique was first used in the 1830s when photography was still a new field and is still being used by fine print artists because of the high quality of tone that can be achieved with the process. A photographic positive is placed on a copper plate, etched and printed. This is a simple explanation for what is a multiple step process that gives the artist the ability to control the light and dark values in their work.

William Blake, Pity (from Shakespeare’s Macbeth), 1795, Monotype

and Degas created monoprints and contemporary artists like Jasper Johns and Jim Dine have used this technique, also. A cross between a painting and an etching, the artist can keep the underlying image and manipulate the ink or paint on top to create dierent prints and eects from the same etched plate. Soft-Ground Etching - This process creates soft, broken lines, like that made by a crayon. The plate is covered with a soft wax or jelly and a drawn image is pressed onto the soft ground. When the plate is put into an acid bath, the texture of the drawing that was placed on it is replicated. Any material can be pressed into the ground, Damien Hirst, The Souls on Jacob's Ladder Take Their Flight (Small Green), - 2007, Hand inked photogravure on 400 gsm like fabric and other material, and its texture will be Velin D'arches paper replicated when the plate is run through a press. Soft- ground etchings give the artist the freedom to use multiple textures in a single print. Heliogravure - this method is similar to photogravure - A veil of ink is intentionally left on the but uses an aquatint technique on the plate to create tone. Plate Tone surface of the plate during printing, to create soft areas of Foul-Biting - foul-biting occurs when the acid-resistant tone or shade. ground on a plate fails to keep all the acid out and the acid - pieces of torn paper are “bites” into areas that were meant to be printed, creating Chine Appliqué/Chine Colle placed onto an etched plate, glued and then the larger irregularities in the print. paper, which will carry the entire image, is placed on top Monotype - A monotype is a combination of both a and all layers are run through the press. print and a painting. The artist creates a single (mono) - embossing is produced when a deeply image on a flat matrix and then transfers it directly to paper. Embossing bitten plate is run through a press onto damp, uninked Because of the single image, it is dicult to produce more paper to produce a raised impression. than one print. Monotypes usually have a softer, more - a plate mark is the result of the edge of a feathery look than a either a painting or etching. Plate Mark metal plate being pushed into the plate by the pressure of Monoprint - A monoprint is similar to a monotype, but the printing press. uses an etched plate to paint or ink on. Rembrandt, Blake

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Steel Facing - steel facing is a technique where a thin Bon A Tirer/Right to Print - this is the proof the artist layer of steel is electroplated onto a copper plate. The steel approves, which establishes the standard for all other coating makes the plate much harder than the original prints in the edition. copper plate, so that more prints can be made from the State - an impression taken from the printing plate at a plate. particular stage of its development. The final State is the Edition - an edition is the total number of impressions state from which editions are generally pulled, although made from the same matrix. Traditional numbers will look artists are able to pull impressions at any state of the like, “7/30,” or the seventh numbered print in an edition of plate’s development. thirty. Monotypes may be numbered “1/1” or marked Trial Proof - also known as a Working Proof, this is an “unique” if only one or two editions are made from the early proof that often includes artist’s revisions. It isn’t same plate. always identical to the numbered edition prints that make Master Printer - a skilled printer who works closely up the final work. with an artist to produce an edition. Printer’s Proof - a Printer’s Proof is printed especially Blind Stamp/Chop - blind stamps are printers’ for the printer and marked as, “P.P.” The Printer’s Proof is identification marks, pressed into paper, after a print edition excluded from the numbered editions, although it is like the is completed. Chops, also marks of identification, are inked numbered prints in every other respect. or stamped. They are not part of the artist’s work, and are Progressive Proof - these are a series of proofs an usually found in the margin of the paper. artist makes of each individual color plate, and combination Watermark - a watermark is a paper manufacturer’s of colors, before printing the final, complete version. mark. It’s a design in the paper that can be seen when the Cancellation Proof - when a print edition is complete, paper is held up to the light to identify the manufacturer the matrix is eaced, or cancelled, so that no further prints and type of paper. can be made. An impression of the cancelled matrix is Hors-Commerce/”H.C.” - Hors-Commerce means made, as proof that it can no longer be used. “outside of the commercial edition.” Proofs that are marked “H.C.” are exactly like the original, numbered prints, but are not numbered and are not for sale.

References

Gascoigne, Bamber. How to Identify Prints: A complete guide to manual and mechanical processes from woocut to ink-jet. Thames and Hudson, Inc., 1991. John Ross, Clare Romano and Tim Ross. The Complete Printmaker. The Free Press, 1990. Smith, Lawrence. The Japanese Print Since 1900. The Trustees of the British Museum, 1983. Ellis, Margaret Holben. The Care of Prints and Drawings. AltaMira Press, 1995. American Images: The SBC Collection of Twentieth Century American Art. Robert Morton, Editor, 1996. VFA Vertu Fine Art: http://vertufineart.com

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The Experience of Buying a Fine Art Print

Like listening to music, viewing art is an emotional experience. Even an artist’s name can stir up feelings. Where and when you viewed the work, how the work relates to your personal experience and makes you feel, can all influence your response to a piece of art. The added benefit of having a work that not only has emotional value, but financial worth, makes buying a fine art print a wise investment.

At Vertu, we hope you come and stroll through our gallery to experience the pleasure of being surrounded by great works or art.

Gary Santoro, Owner and Bill Pugsley Director at Vertu Fine Art. Gary is available to meet with collectors by appointment and also welcomes walk-in viewers, as he is frequently at VFA during business hours. If you’d like to contact Bill about art, music, life, love or anything else, you can email him at Bill@vertufineart.com or visit at Vertu Fine Art Gallery in Boca Center, Boca Raton, Florida.

5250 Town Center Circle, Boca Raton, FL 33486 • 561.368.4680 • www.vertufineart.com

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