In the Beginning...
This website dedicated to world printmakers and their work is a spinoff of The Spanish Printmakers' Collective, has been online since the year 2000. Both sites were created by American expatriate journalist and publicist, Mike Booth, and his printmaker wife, Maureen. Though Booth is from the U.S.A. and Maureen from the U.K., they have lived and worked for many years in Granada, Spain.

Frankly surprised at the interest that Spanish Printmakers awakened among both artists and collectors from countries as disparate as Japan, New Zealand, the U.S.A and the U.K., the Booths noted that the fine-art print has a select-but-dedicated following in both the real and virtual worlds. Their intention with World Printmakers is both to create a helpful resource site for printmakers and to provide a forum for serial artists from all countries to show their work and offer it for sale to the global audience which the Web puts at their disposal.

They hope that fine-art print lovers and collectors will find it interesting to encounter in this one specialist site an ample representation of contemporary graphic work being done by live artists from all parts of the world. For real enthusiasts they have also included a bit of background on printmaking history and techniques and the conservation of works on paper, as well as explanations of fundamental printmaking concepts like "limited editions" and "print numbering".

Mission Statement
Our mission is: to provide a specialist space where printmakers from all countries can show their work to its best advantage and offer it for sale to a worldwide audience. To provide efficient, honest and trustworthy services to print collectors. And to become, with time, the "site of record" in the printmaking world.

Overview
WorldPrintmakers.com is online since June 2000 with the proposal to serve two clear-cut collectives worldwide: working printmakers and fine-art print lovers. The former, as "culture workers" deserve all the help they can get, and the latter, a select-but-devoted minority, need a dedicated printmaking center on the Web where they know they can always turn for reliable information, up-to-date news, interesting work for sale and sheer visual delight.

The printmakers who participate in the World Printmakers website have the opportunity to sell directly to the clients who come to them via World Printmakers, as we refer clients directly to the artists, taking no commissions on sales. For just a modest annual fee our artists get a tasteful online exhibition space for their work and a client-referral service. And they have the assurance that they form part of the world's first truly-global printmakers' community.

By doing so the artists are able to sidestep the traditional labyrinth of the world art market with its nested layers of intermediaries. World Printmakers is proud to present graphic artists directly to the print-loving public on six continents. Not many years ago this would have sounded Utopian, as far-fetched as a deranged 15th-century mariner setting sail for the West in order to discover the East. Nevertheless, today it's virtually real. Anyone with any doubts on this question need only point his nao towards http://www.worldprintmakers.com.