The Original Print: Understanding Technique in Contemporary Fine Printmaking [Hardcover]

Chris Byrne (Author), Paula McCarthy Panczenko (Preface)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2002

A guide to the various techniques of printmaking - among them etching, aquatint, lithography and screenprinting - how they are used and to what effect. Each section begins with an explanation of the processes illustrated within the chapter.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Printmaking spans everything from hand prints on ancient cave walls to Rembrandt's copper etchings of the Virgin and Child and Warhol's soup cans to the potato prints made by today's second grader at the kitchen table. Byrne, a print publisher and curator, here focuses on strictly contemporary uses of etching, aquatint, lithography, and screen printing. He covers both basic techniques and the joint experimentation of artist and master printer, surveying the American print scene with examples from ten of the top North American print houses. Recommended for collections serving advanced students and professionals. Chief curator of the Department of Prints, Drawings and Paintings at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Lambert here offers a very fine, short volume that concentrates on traditional printmaking methods, including relief, intaglio, planographic, and stencil. She uses examples from William Hogarth to Victor Vasarely, drawing on the collections of the V & A. Lambert addresses students and collectors, including a glossary of technical terms, abbreviations found in print inscriptions, and a select bibliography. This is recommended for popular collections but cannot replace John Ross and Clare Romano's essential and far more comprehensive Complete Printmaker.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 127 pages
• Publisher: Guild Publishing (April 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893164144
• ISBN-13: 978-1893164147
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 9.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,299,590 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful Survey of Technique, April 21, 2002

By 

"krchicago" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Original Print: Understanding Technique in Contemporary Fine Printmaking (Hardcover)

Byrne provides a good introduction to the four major groups of printing techniques -- relief (woodblock, linocut, etc.), intaglio (etching, aquatint, engraving, and so on), lithography and screenprinting -- briefly describing their history, mechanics and characteristic effects. If you are interested in fine prints, this book will give you the vocabulary, although you really have to see some of the techniques in action to understand how they work.

Text is a small portion of the book, which is largely devoted to contemporary prints themselves, with commentary from some of the printers. The book is *not* a general survey of contemporary fine prints, however. Instead, the book seems to have been conceived as a collaboration between Guild.com (an Internet retailer of fine and decorative art) and several of the contemporary fine print publishers who make their work available through Guild (as well as through more traditional distribution channels). Printmakers who do not sell through Guild are not represented, and artists who work on their own (typically in woodblock or linocut, which do not require a press) are similarly excluded. Even so, many of the finest printmakers in the US are included, and the quality and variety of the work displayed is stunning. Color reproduction is quite good, although not perfect.

1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Warhola of a book, November 6, 2002

By 

Brooke Burns (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Original Print: Understanding Technique in Contemporary Fine Printmaking (Hardcover)

The mass production of this text serves as an aesthetic nurturing for the starving art enthusiasts of our time. Clement Greenberg and Susan Sontag would vehemently disapprove. Byrne sheds light on the multi-valent reality of the collaborative process. Printmaking has never been so sexy. I highly recommend this book.