Giclees and Silkscreens

In the 80's Limited Edition 'Fine Art' prints were hand produced silkscreens,etchings etc. Some of my paintings were published for the American market as Silkscreens or Serigraphs as they called them, produced via specialist silkscreen artist printers with the original being mastered photographically. They were made by 'pulling' up to 100 separate screens one colour or detail at a time edited by me about three times through the process. Highly labour intensive with an edition of 300 multiplied by 100 screens ,wow, no wonder they were expensive - £400 on the gallery wall for a print ! Each print was slightly different and categorised as 'fine art'. They were rather wonderful,vibrant colours like the paintings and a tactile build up of ink.

Panic set in in the art world when technology came along and the digital world of scanners and printers meant the number of copies was unlimited and only controlled by the publishers integrity. The art world needed a description and the term 'Giclee' - jet de liquide - was coined.. A nicer word than inkjet it was Frenchly artistic and became the industry standard description.

A Giclee print is created from the original painting.An extremely high resolution digital file is made by flatbed scanner,12 colour enhanced printers then output the image onto heavyweight archival paper or canvas capturing every detail and sublety of the original. The process provides better colour accuracy than any other means of reproduction and quality pigment inks ensure lightfastness for the foreseeable future.Numbered and signed by the artist it is as near to the original as a print can get !

June 2018