Printmaking is the art of making original images by printing them, usually onto paper, from a prepared surface called a matrix. The artist works an image into a block, plate, stone or screen, inks it, and presses it onto paper. Because the matrix can be inked and printed again and again, a single design can yield many prints, each one an original artwork in its own right rather than a copy. The relief printing family, which includes the woodcut, the linocut and letterpress, is the oldest and most approachable corner of this wide and varied field.
What makes a print a print
At the heart of every print is the matrix: the surface that carries the image. It might be a carved block of lino or wood, a metal plate bitten with acid, a flat limestone, or a fine mesh screen. The artist prepares the matrix so that only the parts meant to print will hold or release ink, then transfers the image to paper by hand or with a press. Each print pulled from the matrix is called an impression. This is what sets printmaking apart from drawing or painting: the image is made indirectly, through the matrix, and can be repeated.
Editions, impressions and original prints
When an artist prints a set of identical impressions, that set is called an edition. Since the late nineteenth century, prints have usually been signed and numbered in pencil, so a note like 12/50 means the twelfth impression of an edition of fifty. A few extra proofs, marked artist's proof (A/P), are often kept aside, and once the edition is finished the matrix is frequently cancelled so no more can be printed. Every one of these impressions is an original print, conceived and made as a print, not a photographic reproduction of a painting. A monotype or monoprint is the exception: it is printed from a matrix but is unique, or nearly so, rather than part of a matching edition.
The four families of printmaking
Most printmaking techniques fall into four families, grouped by how the matrix holds the ink:
- Relief - the ink sits on the raised surface and the cut-away areas stay blank. This family includes the woodcut, the linocut, wood engraving and letterpress. See our guide to relief printing.
- Intaglio - the ink sits in lines cut or etched below the surface; the plate is wiped and a heavy press forces the paper into the grooves. It covers engraving, etching, drypoint, aquatint and mezzotint.
- Planographic - the surface is completely flat and chemistry decides where ink sticks, as in lithography.
- Stencil - ink is pushed through the open areas of a stencil or mesh, as in screenprinting (also called serigraphy) and pochoir.
A short history
Printmaking is over a thousand years old. It began in China, where woodblock printing was used to print on paper many centuries ago; the Diamond Sutra of 868 AD is the earliest dated complete printed book. Woodcut images on paper appeared in Europe around 1400, and engraving followed in Germany in the 1430s, adapted from the way goldsmiths decorated metal. Etching arrived in the early sixteenth century: Daniel Hopfer is credited with the idea, and Albrecht Dürer made a dated etching in 1515.
Lithography was invented by Alois Senefelder in 1796, opening up a way of printing from a flat surface. In the twentieth century screenprinting became an art form in its own right, famously in the hands of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, and today digital methods such as giclée (a term coined in 1991) sit alongside the traditional techniques. You can read more about the printmakers who shaped these methods.
Where to start: relief printing
If you want to try printmaking yourself, relief printing is by far the friendliest way in: it needs little equipment and no press to begin. The linocut is the gentlest starting point, and our step-by-step guide for beginners and a simple block-print stamp will have you pulling prints in an afternoon. All you need is a lino sheet, some cutting tools, a brayer and ink, and a baren or press. From there you can explore the woodcut and letterpress, browse our printmaking supplies, and keep the glossary close for any new terms.