A print is an image created on a surface, and then transferred onto a support (usually paper), using a press. As a support Hodgkin has used copper
aluminium:
zinc:
and stone:
These produce lithographs (from the Greek words for stone, lithos and writing graphein). Early in his career he made screenprints
He returned once to the medium in 1981 for Souvenir.
Hodgkin began to use aquatint in 1973 (Interior, Day and Night) and sugar-lift and aquatint in 1977 (Nick, A Furnished Room). These techniques introduce texture and tone to print making. The artist first paints a solution of sugar and water onto a plate. It’s coloured, so it can be seen, but that colour bears no relation to the final result.
The copper plate is coated with an acid-resistant varnish and then immersed in warm water. Water dissolves the sugar solution and 'lifts' away the varnish. The exposed areas are then painted with grains of acid-resistant resin. The plate is then heated and the dry dust melts, sticking to the plate.
Once the aquatinted plate is dipped into an acid bath, the acid bites around the particles and creates a texture on the plate surface. The plate is inked and wiped: the ink gathers in the etched areas and is cleaned away from the unbitten copper. The inked plate is laid face-up onto an etching press and dampened paper is laid on top of it. When it passes through a press, the aquatinted image is transferred (in reverse) onto the paper.
Working since 1986 with Jack Shirreff at the 107 Workshop, Wiltshire, Hodgkin has also used carborundum in his print making, a speciality of this workshop. Carborundum is the common name for silicon carbide. Traditionally used by printers to grind down lithographic stones, it can also play a role in the printmaking process. Grinding the carborundum into a powder and mixing it with a PVA glue produces a malleable paste which can be painted onto a printing plate (acrylic or the aluminium Hodgkin uses).
Carborundum dries into a hard, relief surface, which can be inked in multiple colours. When dampened paper is placed on top of the worked plate and both are put through an etching press, the ink is transferred and the relief areas emboss the paper surface: hills on the plate produce valleys in the paper.
These printing techniques allow the work to exist as multiples, in editions. An 'original print' is a work of art whose intention and execution mean that it exists only in the medium of print. An original print is NOT a mechanical reproduction of a unique 'original'. On the contrary, each impression in an edition is an 'original' in its own right.
Original prints used to be produced in 'limited editions' because the incised image on a plate could degrade over the course of pulling an entire edition. Nowadays plates can be protected, which means there is no loss of quality. A myth surfaced that 'Copy 1' (supposedly the richest, freshest impression) is more valuable than later edition numbers. This is not true of contemporary prints and in any case artists now rarely sign and number editions in the order in which they were printed. Artists sometimes limit the edition because they feel over-multiplication damages the integrity of the original image.
Since 1977 and Julian and Alexis Howard Hodgkin has enriched the printing process with hand-painting, at one remove: it is executed by studio assistants under his supervision. They paint on the paper before and/or after it is impressed with an image.
The making of As Time Goes By began with hand painting the borders of the paper sheet, which were laid on the floor, with acrylics in Anthraquinone, Outremer and Brilliant Blue (blue) and with Cadmium Red Light, Pyrrole Red and Cadmium Red Medium acrylic (red). Each image required about 9 litres of medium and 2 litres of pigment and took two days to dry.
Once the print is made the artist rejects results that do not correspond to his intention - Hodgkin sometimes rejects as many as 70 sheets before he is satisfied with the printing and hand colouring. He labels a satisfactory proof 'B.A.T' (from the French bon à tirer meaning, 'good to pull'). The B.A.T becomes the standard against which the printer has to match the entire edition, including APs, Artist Proofs. But because this is a hand-made process with additional painting, slight variations do occur. Once the edition is printed and the hand-painting is completed, Hodgkin signs and numbers the edition in pencil, a process he describes as '...curiously, completely exhausting'.
These processes constitute what Hodgkin considers to be his limited edition original prints.
But the same words 'original prints' sometimes confusingly refer to images best described as photographic reproductions of paintings. Silkscreen and lithography can also be used reproductively and mechanically to copy pre-existing paintings. These may also be made in signed and numbered, limited editions and printed on 'fine art papers'. But in almost every case, the artist's participation is limited to signing the finished product, having had no hand in its actual production.
When the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol opened in 1975 it produced a photo-silkscreen of Hodgkin's painting Artificial Flowers with the artist's permission. With Bernard Jacobson he made photo-screenprints of Lotus, Still life and Tropic Fruit, three of the unique works using dye on handmade, unsized paper, in the series called Indian Leaves; he allowed the Museum of Modern Art, New York, to make a photo-lithograph of Red Bermudas (the painting in their collection). The Petersburg Press published a photo-screenprint of In a French Restaurant in 29 colours from 29 screens. Printed onto board, one copy stood outside Hodgkin's show in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1984. Recently he allowed the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York to reproduce five paintings - Venetian Glass, Gossip, Bamboo, In Tangier and The Sky's the Limit - as photo-silkscreened posters, some of which he signed and numbered.
When Hodgkin designed a stamp for Royal Mail in 1999, it was also published as a larger photo-screenprint, New Worlds, in a limited edition, which he signed and numbered. There are other authorised, reproductive prints of paintings widely available, such as Andrew Allfree and Going for a Walk with Andrew Allfree. They were issued in unknown quantities, some of which Hodgkin has signed.
For more information about Hodgkin's techniques, see the introduction by Nan Rosenthal, 'To make the most of an image' and Liesbeth Heenk's notes on individual works in the latter's book Howard Hodgkin: The Complete Prints, 2003, as well as David Acton's essay in Howard Hodgkin Prints, 2006, edited by Neil McConnon. In general, visit the 'what is print?' section of the website created by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Interior, Day and Night
Nick, A Furnished Room
Bed, Breakfast
aluminium:
Nick’s Room, A Storm
Mango, Jarid’s Porch
zinc:
After Luke Howard
and stone:
Birthday Party, Red Eye.
These produce lithographs (from the Greek words for stone, lithos and writing graphein). Early in his career he made screenprints
Enter Laughing, Figure Composition
He returned once to the medium in 1981 for Souvenir.
Hodgkin began to use aquatint in 1973 (Interior, Day and Night) and sugar-lift and aquatint in 1977 (Nick, A Furnished Room). These techniques introduce texture and tone to print making. The artist first paints a solution of sugar and water onto a plate. It’s coloured, so it can be seen, but that colour bears no relation to the final result.
The copper plate used for As Time Goes By painted with sugar solution coloured with ultramarine gouache.
The copper plate is coated with an acid-resistant varnish and then immersed in warm water. Water dissolves the sugar solution and 'lifts' away the varnish. The exposed areas are then painted with grains of acid-resistant resin. The plate is then heated and the dry dust melts, sticking to the plate.
The resin dust melts, leaving marks visible on the copper plate, lower centre
Once the aquatinted plate is dipped into an acid bath, the acid bites around the particles and creates a texture on the plate surface. The plate is inked and wiped: the ink gathers in the etched areas and is cleaned away from the unbitten copper. The inked plate is laid face-up onto an etching press and dampened paper is laid on top of it. When it passes through a press, the aquatinted image is transferred (in reverse) onto the paper.
The five sections of As Time Goes By are printed from three copper panels (as well as one aluminium panel). From the left: two panels have been painted with sugar-lift solution; the central one has been varnished and the sugar solution has been washed off while the last two have been through the acid bath.
Working since 1986 with Jack Shirreff at the 107 Workshop, Wiltshire, Hodgkin has also used carborundum in his print making, a speciality of this workshop. Carborundum is the common name for silicon carbide. Traditionally used by printers to grind down lithographic stones, it can also play a role in the printmaking process. Grinding the carborundum into a powder and mixing it with a PVA glue produces a malleable paste which can be painted onto a printing plate (acrylic or the aluminium Hodgkin uses).
Jack Shirreff wiping down the carborundum patches on the aluminium plate.
Carborundum dries into a hard, relief surface, which can be inked in multiple colours. When dampened paper is placed on top of the worked plate and both are put through an etching press, the ink is transferred and the relief areas emboss the paper surface: hills on the plate produce valleys in the paper.
Tears, Idle Tears seen in a raking light: carborundum's sculptural effect on print making may be analogous to the way many of Hodgkin's paintings occupy three dimensions.
Jack Shirreff unpeels the paper from the aluminium plate, where the carborundum paste has been inked with Rouge Geranium and 30% Cardinal Red (red version). On the blue version it is coloured with Jaune Capucine.
These printing techniques allow the work to exist as multiples, in editions. An 'original print' is a work of art whose intention and execution mean that it exists only in the medium of print. An original print is NOT a mechanical reproduction of a unique 'original'. On the contrary, each impression in an edition is an 'original' in its own right.
Original prints used to be produced in 'limited editions' because the incised image on a plate could degrade over the course of pulling an entire edition. Nowadays plates can be protected, which means there is no loss of quality. A myth surfaced that 'Copy 1' (supposedly the richest, freshest impression) is more valuable than later edition numbers. This is not true of contemporary prints and in any case artists now rarely sign and number editions in the order in which they were printed. Artists sometimes limit the edition because they feel over-multiplication damages the integrity of the original image.
Since 1977 and Julian and Alexis Howard Hodgkin has enriched the printing process with hand-painting, at one remove: it is executed by studio assistants under his supervision. They paint on the paper before and/or after it is impressed with an image.
The making of As Time Goes By began with hand painting the borders of the paper sheet, which were laid on the floor, with acrylics in Anthraquinone, Outremer and Brilliant Blue (blue) and with Cadmium Red Light, Pyrrole Red and Cadmium Red Medium acrylic (red). Each image required about 9 litres of medium and 2 litres of pigment and took two days to dry.
Brushes used in painting the borders of As Time Goes By
Once the print is made the artist rejects results that do not correspond to his intention - Hodgkin sometimes rejects as many as 70 sheets before he is satisfied with the printing and hand colouring. He labels a satisfactory proof 'B.A.T' (from the French bon à tirer meaning, 'good to pull'). The B.A.T becomes the standard against which the printer has to match the entire edition, including APs, Artist Proofs. But because this is a hand-made process with additional painting, slight variations do occur. Once the edition is printed and the hand-painting is completed, Hodgkin signs and numbers the edition in pencil, a process he describes as '...curiously, completely exhausting'.
These processes constitute what Hodgkin considers to be his limited edition original prints.
But the same words 'original prints' sometimes confusingly refer to images best described as photographic reproductions of paintings. Silkscreen and lithography can also be used reproductively and mechanically to copy pre-existing paintings. These may also be made in signed and numbered, limited editions and printed on 'fine art papers'. But in almost every case, the artist's participation is limited to signing the finished product, having had no hand in its actual production.
When the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol opened in 1975 it produced a photo-silkscreen of Hodgkin's painting Artificial Flowers with the artist's permission. With Bernard Jacobson he made photo-screenprints of Lotus, Still life and Tropic Fruit, three of the unique works using dye on handmade, unsized paper, in the series called Indian Leaves; he allowed the Museum of Modern Art, New York, to make a photo-lithograph of Red Bermudas (the painting in their collection). The Petersburg Press published a photo-screenprint of In a French Restaurant in 29 colours from 29 screens. Printed onto board, one copy stood outside Hodgkin's show in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1984. Recently he allowed the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York to reproduce five paintings - Venetian Glass, Gossip, Bamboo, In Tangier and The Sky's the Limit - as photo-silkscreened posters, some of which he signed and numbered.
When Hodgkin designed a stamp for Royal Mail in 1999, it was also published as a larger photo-screenprint, New Worlds, in a limited edition, which he signed and numbered. There are other authorised, reproductive prints of paintings widely available, such as Andrew Allfree and Going for a Walk with Andrew Allfree. They were issued in unknown quantities, some of which Hodgkin has signed.
For more information about Hodgkin's techniques, see the introduction by Nan Rosenthal, 'To make the most of an image' and Liesbeth Heenk's notes on individual works in the latter's book Howard Hodgkin: The Complete Prints, 2003, as well as David Acton's essay in Howard Hodgkin Prints, 2006, edited by Neil McConnon. In general, visit the 'what is print?' section of the website created by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Please do not show me again
Wood Cut
Lithography
Copper
SilkScreen or Stencil
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