What is an Original Print?

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

In conclusion, one may summarize the problem of reproductive versus original prints somewhat as follows. Due to the impact of photography and photomechanical processes, a new attitude toward printmaking has developed which stresses the original, the creative factor. Printmakers now strive to make works of art; in the past they just made prints. The motivations were different. Then, there was no other way to produce many facsimiles of a single image; nowadays there are also photomechanical ways. In general, one may say that hand work is bound up with art and original execution as opposed to automation and mechanical processes. When Emile Zola wrote his pamphlet in defense of Manet's much-criticized painting Olympia, and it seemed desirable to include an illustration, Manet himself made an etching of it. It was not a reproduction of the painting, though it served as one. It was actually a translation of the subject into another medium, a variant of the artist's conception. We are grateful for the occasion which induced Manet to make an original etching, designed and executed by himself. Today such a pamphlet would probably be illustrated with a process color reproduction.

In the past the name of the artist or designer and the name of the reproducing craftsman appeared on reproductive engravings as a matter of course. Sometimes even the title of the picture and the name and address of the publisher (exc. or excudit) were also engraved on the plate. Today this tradition has been broken and it is not common practice to indicate the name of the reproducing craftsman on the print, with the result that such prints often pass for originals because everywhere the accent is on the original print.

In our era, then, the graphic artists — particularly Hayter and the Americans — tend to view printmaking as a major medium; and this point of view, which has also spread among critics, museum people, and the buying public, has tended to glorify originality and creation. It may be that too high a premium is being placed upon these values in the light of graphic tradition. There is an originality of design (which can still appear, although diluted, in reproductions) and there is an originality of execution (upon which the modern artists set great store). In past print history, the invention per se, the design and the message, were what the public looked for and prized. To be sure, the original artist of old also was concerned with the execution and with the effort to clothe his conception in the most perfect form possible. But that concern was his private affair, related to his artistic conscience, and of interest, possibly, only to his fellow practitioners, but certainly not to the layman in general. The modern artists (and through them now the public at large) tend to be conscious not only of what they say but also of how they say it. Indeed they almost make the latter the prime creative motivation. Thus, when they make a print, they maintain that it is a complete aesthetic entity, a perfect fusion of concept and form, a work of art which could not exist in any other shape or form, and which is fully the equal in validity and impact of an oil painting, irrespective of whether it exists in one or more impressions. But in any estimate of rank between major and minor art, one must remember that printmaking really cannot count on the still potent asset of uniqueness, as can painting, drawing, and to a lesser extent, plastic art (which also has its problem with casts as multi-originals). The transvaluation of printmaking from minor into major, however, is in the spirit of the age, and must be reckoned with. It is imperative above all that we come to terms with certain attitudes — hold-overs from the past — which, being less scrupulous in discrimination between original and reproductive, are causing confusion and misunderstanding.

These notes are designed to review objectively the conflicting standards of business morality held by some artists and some dealers. It may turn out that the problem is one of semantics rather than ethics. We must make the issue widespread and make clear just what the difference is between original and reproductive. These notes also aim to place this very modern problem into some sort of historical perspective in order to serve as a corrective, possibly, of any uninformed criticism from the modern point of view of various practices in the past. These procedures might be deemed questionable today, whereas they were quite legitimate in the framework of their time.

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Copyright © 1961 Print Council of America
Used with permission.