she paints; she is a painter

This beautiful etching and aquatint, “The Deserted Garden”, by the Danish artist, Lars Bo*, was struck in 1962. I was pleased to acquire this piece from a private collection through the on-line art auction held in the fall of 2012 at the Hamilton Art Gallery in Ontario.

I am very attracted to the art of print making.

These art pieces are produced by an indirect transfer process where an image is applied to an intermediary surface such as: blocks (wood, linoleum etc.), metal plates (copper, aluminum etc.), stones (limestone), or screens (silk). With the help of a printing press the image is transferred usually to a high quality paper, resulting in an etching (metal), a lithograph (stone), a relief print (block), or a serigraph (silk screen). For more detailed explanations of these processes, there is a wonderful website from the MoMA (click here) in NYC.

When you look at an original print, you will see at the edge of the image the outline of the intermediary surface pressed into the paper. (Except a serigraph which doesn’t go through a press) The artist will limit the number of impressions made from each image and will tell you the number of your impression. In this case Lars Bo has limited the image to 210 pressings and I have bought number 52.  In some cases it is better to have a lower number because that indicates the lesser amount of times the plate was subject to the printing press and potentially less corruption to the line quality.

This etching was still in its original frame and mat from the last from 50 years. I could see that the mat was not of good quality and this was confirmed when I saw the acid from the mat which had leached onto the etching.  Here is where the “Be Aware” becomes important. When purchasing a print work or having one matted, be sure you confirm that the mat material is of archival quality, i.e. acid free!

*More about the artist: