When hearing the word “prints,” we tend to associate the term with the “etching” of pictures into wooden or metallic slabs using carving knives. Lithograph prints, however, are prints made not by carving calculated indentations into an underlying material to form uneven surfaces, but rather by drawing images on the smooth, unetched surface of the chosen material.

With lithographs, the printing plate is realized through chemistry, taking advantage of the mutually repellent properties of water and oil to create separate areas on the plate where ink is to remain, forming the artist’s intended image, and where the ink will not remain, leaving blank areas. This ability to create a print image through a process closely resembling direct drawing on paper or canvas using oil-based crayons or inks is one of the primary features of lithography. Another capability with lithography is the transfer of an image by use of photomechanical process.

Lithography was originally invented as a printing technique for industrial applications. But from early on, the ability with lithography to freely create images on a plate--and especially the capacity to realize painterly images--captured the hearts of artists. Before long they began adopting the technique to create a large number of lithographs as works of art.
Today, lithography has come to be widely adopted as one of the core techniques used in the realm of contemporary prints. Especially in the United States, where works of art are often created through collaboration between an artist or sculptor and a print studio, the ability to create an image in a manner close to painting or drawing has inspired many artists to apply their artistic talents to the production of lithograph prints. Two prime examples are Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler, both of whom successfully took the feature for which their paintings were best known--spontaneous color surfaces--and transposed it to the print medium. Another success story is David Hockney, who has given full play to his inborn strengths as a sketch artist within the realm of lithography as well.

This exhibition will provide an overview of the development of lithographs as contemporary prints using examples from CCGA’s Tyler Graphics Archive Collection. We hope the exhibition will give visitors an opportunity to become familiar with and discover the great appeal of this brilliant artistic technique.