Marjorie B. Cohn and Clare I. Rogan

97 pages, 8 1/2 x 11"; 44 duotones; 1998

ISBN 0-916724-99-9 (paper) $15

This catalogue and the exhibition it accompanies mark the 200th anniversary of the invention of lithography. Since its invention in 1798, lithography has developed in every imaginable direction. Its history, perhaps more than that of any other printing technique, has been one equally of technological advancement and artistic and commercial application. Lithography has been adapted to the production of everything from microchip wafers to barn-sized posters

The medium’s relative ease of execution, subtle transfer of artistic effects, and sturdy reproducibility made it the print technique of the 19th century. In the 20th century, during the 1960s—an era of sunny optimism, commercial expansion, and social unrest—it was the print technique that fueled the so-called American print renaissance. It was exactly lithography’s adaptability that made it a viable option for artists who disliked, or did not want to learn, traditional print techniques; it was, and is, the only printmaking method to allow artists to use their accustomed tools and materials—brush and paint, pen and ink, crayon and paper—to make prints.

An essay by Clare Rogan looks at the influence of lithography on graphic styles during the 30 years following the technique’s invention in 1798. Marjorie Cohn examines the freedom lithography affords the artist, with its capacity to record the artist’s touch, whether expressed in drawn line or brushed tone, or quite literally through a fingerprint. Included are works by such artists as Delacroix, Géricault, Manet, Degas, Kollwitz, Picasso, Klee, Nolde, Miró, Ernst, de Kooning, Rauschenberg, and Johns.

See press release
See exhibition information