“Who will say that Hockney’s (digital) prints are not ‘original’ prints?” Not us, certainly.

Print Workshop Central received another interesting comment from Julia Matcham recently and I think it’s important enough to bring out to the first page and address it. Here’s Julia’s comment:

“I just thought I would draw people’s attention to the fact that David Hockney has just had an exhibition in London of inkjet prints entirely drawn into the computer using a graphics pad (as I do these days). As he says in the introduction to his catalogue (Annely Juda Gallery) ‘the computer is just a tool’. It is as good as you are.

“Autumn Leaves” by David Hockney

Who will say that Hockney’s prints are not ‘original prints’? I think the hand-print brigade are on a sticky wicket here! Not that I don’t appreciate that there are differences; just that definitions other than ‘ this print does not exist in any other form’ are out-of-date.”

Call for Definitions of Fine-Art Print Terms

More than one of the participants in the No Giclee debate have pointed out the necessity to define the terms we are using in the interest of clarifying the issues.  This was brought to our attention again yesterday in an excellent post by fine-art photographer, Eugene Bradford (scroll to the bottom of this page to see his comments.) So we’re opening up this post to create a space where people can propose their own definitions of the words we’re throwing around so freely in the debate, with no real consensus yet as to what we’re actually talking about. Then we can think about them together and try to reach an agreement on what each one means. This should make our debate clearer and more meaningful, and perhaps even lead to some conclusions on which we can take action.

So, if you would like to contribute your own definitions of terms like “fine-art print,” “hand pulled,” “giclee,” “digital print,” and any others you might find relevant, please feel free to do so in the “Comment” box. (Follow the “leave a comment” link located beneath the headline of this post.)