Printmaking Defined

A definition of "printmaking" according to the Encyclopedia Britannica:
"...broadly, the production of images normally on paper and exceptionally on fabric, parchment, plastic or other support by various processes of multiplication; more narrowly, the making and printing of graphic works by hand or under the supervision of the artist."

Multiple Originals
A fine art print is a "multiple original." That is to say, usually within the confines of a limited edition, the artist conceives and executes his work specifically in the context of one or another of the serial techniques: etching, woodcut, silk screen, lino cut, etc. Most artists feel that the technique itself adds a new dimension to an original work of art, transforming a mere drawing into something more sublime through one or another of the processes of serial reproduction.

What Is a Fine-Art Print?
Booth's Flowery Definition

A fine-art print, in its finest expression, is a piece of paper where a person possessed of special sensitivity has stamped an inked plate with a small-but-sincere sample of his (or her) joy of living, his sense of humor, his delight in form or color, his vision of the people around him, his existential doubt, his fear of death, his fondness for small mammals, his fascination for the night sky, the sadness which he experiences seeing mediocrity triumph... or simply the profound satisfaction of tracing a line on a plate with a pointed stylus.

This, we submit, is the essence of the fine-art print, but there's more. There's a history and a set of traditions. There are norms. There's commerce. There's even fraud. That is to say, serial art is a world unto itself. If you would like to step inside this world that some of us consider the most fascinating of all, a good place to start is right here in the pages of World Printmakers. Come on in. We hope you'll feel at home here. It's entirely possible that this curious little domain of the fine-art print may be your world, too.