What is an Original Print?

What Is A Print?
Printmaking: The Historical Background by Carl Zigrosser

It was in the XIX century that the concept of the original print began to emerge in tangible form. The invention of photography early in the century was a critical point in the history of printmaking, but its full impact was not realized until the end of the century, when its applications to photomechanical reproduction were perfected. The effect was revolutionary and far reaching. As was said in Six Centuries of Fine Prints, New York, 1937: "Through the development of photoengraving, the line cut and the halftone, it (photography) stripped regular printmaking completely of its reproductive function. . . . The artist who now makes prints speaks not as a copyist but as a creative artist working directly in a graphic medium. This has necessitated a new orientation, a new justification for prints. They must stand or fall as an independent art."

There were also active spokesmen on behalf of the original print from about the middle of the XIX century onward. Whistler preached the gospel by precept and example. Seymour Haden wrote a pamphlet in 1883 The Relative Claims of Etching and Engraving to Rank as Fine Arts in which he coined the phrase painter-etchers and painter-engravers as opposed to reproductive craftsmen. For the purpose of his argument he classified all the creative virtues under the heading of etching and all the dull mechanical practices under the head of engraving:

"The essential differences between etching and engraving may, therefore, be described as of two kinds — differences of principle, and differences of technique — and these again be expressed, not inaptly, by some such formula as the following: 'Etching, depending on brain impulse, is personal; and the creative faculty being chiefly engaged in it, invention, sensibility, and the various attributes which make up the sum of genius, belong to it and constitute it an art. Engraving being without personality — except such as may be supposed to be involved in the act of copying or translating the work of another — originality, and all the attributes which attend the exercise of the creative faculty, are absent from it, and constitute it a metier.'"

The question of originals versus photomechanical reproductions also came up later in the XIX century. Sir Hubert Herkomer was sharply criticised in the British press by Walter Sickert and Joseph Pennell for selling photogravures of his paintings as original etchings. The influence of Whistler and Haden bore fruit in England and America in the high regard placed upon original etching at the beginning of the XX century. In spite of the fact that this appreciation was limited to etching (and, as it has turned out, often to etchings by artists of mediocre potential) it was a step toward the recognition of printmaking as a major medium. In France, although many of their great artists have made original prints in one form or another, there is still a large body of opinion which has no high regard for printmaking as a creative medium, and considers it a reproductive process for the luxury trade. Even after the photomechanical reproductive processes were fully perfected, "de luxe" publications were issued containing reproductions of paintings etched by mediocre artists or professional printers, designed to have a luxury or snob appeal (including such eye catchers as Japan vellum paper, marginal "remarques," limited editions, and fancy bindings), although in reality these "handmade" productions were inferior — as far as fidelity to the original paintings were concerned — to regular process prints. This fact and the presence of highly skilled craftsmen in printing and color work have brought about some of the questionable practices in vogue today in France. If there are fools, chiefly from America, eager in their ignorance, to pay high prices for reproductions in the belief that they are original prints, who is to disillusion them?

Printmakers in America, more than in any other country today, feel an obligation to perform every step in the production of a print from the preparation of the plates, blocks, or stones to the printing of the finished impressions. This may be due in part to a dearth of skilled professional printers, who might relieve the artist of part of the burden, and in part to a sense of dedication on the part of the artist to what he considers a major creative medium, and which impels him to participate in every step of it. There is among certain printmakers, as among certain abstract-expressionist painters, an uncompromising, almost religious fervor which exalts their self expression as a law unto itself. It is possible that too great a value can be placed on originality and absolute participation. One wonders if these printmakers in their eagerness to establish graphic art as a major creative medium of equal rank with painting and the plastic arts, are negating the very idea of the print as a moderately priced multi-original. Certainly the large size, the complexity of color, and the extremely limited editions of many recent prints are designed to compete directly with paintings. These speculations, however, are beside the point: the artist will go on to fulfill his destiny no matter what the critics say. What is pertinent is the high value placed upon original prints in America by the artists and especially by the public, relatively prosperous and eager to own original works of art. When a public, thus conditioned, is offered signed prints by famous artists which it assumes to be original prints but actually are reproductions by a skilled craftsman, then the question of fraud raises its ugly head.

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Copyright © 1961 Print Council of America
Used with permission.