From my 20 plus years in the art world I have come to realize that almost everyone is confused by prints.
I would love to clear this up. So this is the first of many posts to come that will tell you all everything you need to know about Fine Art Prints.
Never let anyone tell you that prints are not fine art. They can be and they are!
In this installment we will go over the "Screen print" or "Serigraph" and "Lithograph".
The Serigraph
A screen print and a serigraph are the same thing. Usually when printing tee shirts it is called a screen print and when printing fine art it is called a serigraph.
Side note
There are a lot of people in the art world who are elitist and want the rest of us to feel as if art is only for the rich. They are wrong! Art is for everyone. If you ever go to a gallery or museum and they give you attitude like you don't belong, tell them to get stuffed and never go back.
Screen printing is a form of stenciling, commonly used to apply words or images to paper, cloth, canvas, board etc, that dates back to the late 1800's. It was in the 1930's that the term serigraph came about in order to distinguish fine art from commercial work. (SNOBS)
In the 1960's screen printing became very popular with the "Pop artists" who were attracted to the bold areas of undulated color, flat surfaces and its commercial look.
For screen prints, a mesh (originally silk) is stretched tightly across a frame. An image is glued or affixed to the mesh in order to mask out compositional areas. This image can be created from a variety of materials: cut paper, hardening glues, or a special gelatin.
Unlike other printing methods, no printing press is needed to transfer images from screens to surface. The screens are placed directly on top of the surface and a squeegee is used to push ink through the mesh. A separate screen is needed for each color to be printed.
LeRoy Neiman's limited editions are for the most part, serigraphs. They are some of the finest examples of fine art screen printing I have ever seen.
Lithograph
Invented in 1798 lithography was widely used through out the 1800's and had it's hay day in the late 1890's with the color works of Cheret, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard and many others.
It can be one of the most direct printing mediums because images are drawn on the flat printing surface in the same way one would paint a watercolor or draw on paper.
Lithography is based on the resistance of grease and water. The artist uses grease crayons or tuschewhich is a liquid applied with a brush, to create an image on the printing stone or plate. Traditionally, slabs of limestone weighing tons were used and moved on small rail ways like train cars. Today sheets of metal are more common because they are much lighter and easier to handle.
When the surface is ready to print, a chemical mixture is applied to the stone to secure the image. Then the stone is covered with water. The water sticks to the stone and not the greasy image drawn by the artist. Inks are then rolled across the stone, sticking to the grease and not the water.
Paper is then placed on the stone and it is run through a press to transfer the image. The more complicated the design the more stones need to be used.
Next, Etching and Wood bloc...
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