The
world is afloat with tidal waves of mechanically reproduced images.
They are made like newspapers are made, with mechanically created
plates printed in great numbers. Sometimes, if the images are
artistic creations, the quantity may be limited; the impressions are
numbered and, best cases, signed, titled, and numbered by the artist.
Hundreds
of millions of illustrations hang on walls on every structure in the
world. Many are calendars or pages torn from calendars, cheap images
bought from hobby stores, or prints from the internet. They give
pleasure, reinforce spirits, reflect personalities, or simply
simplify the boredom of bare-space walls.
Mechanically
engineered images printed in great numbers have no artistic or market
value. With the exception of one good calendar and one framed image,
I will not allow these artistic masquerades on our walls.
Fortunately, we have too much good stuff to hang.
The
one framed mechanical image is of an artist’s painting of the
Enola Gay in flight, returning from its mission over
Hiroshima. It is not even numbered, but it is signed by the artist
and the five members of the mission who were still alive when it was
printed: the pilot, the navigator, the bombardier, the radio
operator, and the weapons officer who was responsible for arming the
bomb in flight, Lt. Morris R. Jeppson, my brother.
There
are many forms of legitimate “multiple-originals.” These
are limited-edition lithographs, serigraphs, etchings, and engravings
whose plates are made by the artist or by the artist in collaboration
with a master printer.
I
published five images by Mathieu Matégot. They were produced
in the workshop of silkscreen printer Lou Stovall in Washington,
D.C., with Lou, Matégot, and me working together to get the
results the artist wanted.
Lou’s
silkscreen inks had to be hand mixed to get Mathieu’s exact
color. Each color was laid down by a separate screen. Like the inks
most silkscreen printers use, Lou’s were opaque. Should any ink
overlap another, the under ink would be blotted out. Lou, however,
was so skilled that colors would abut, not overlap.
Later
I published five silkscreen prints based on watercolors by my
daughter Anne Bradham. The printer was the late Rob Carawan in Spring
City, Utah. Rob was a genius in using transparent inks. One color
laid over another would produce a third color. Rob was so good that
he could produce editions that were difficult to distinguish from the
original watercolors.
Historically,
the French and the Japanese have been notable printmakers. Ambroise
Vollard (1866-1939) was a powerful Paris art dealer who represented
the cream of French artists of the early 20th Century. He
was also the most important publisher of etchings and lithographs.
His
editions, including fabulous series by Rouault and Picasso, often
were printed by the atelier of Fernand Mourlot. Over a 50-year
period, Mourlot printed 407 Picasso images.
Ambroise Vollard by Paul Cézanne
One of a hundred subjects in a Picasso suite published by Vollard and printed by Mourlot. This
is an adaptation of Guernica, the famous Picasso painting depicting the horrors of the bombing of the city of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.
I
have silkscreen prints by Nat Leeb printed in the 1960s by the
Mourlot atelier that required 56 separate screens.
Nucleaire, silk screen print by Nat Leeb required 56 screens.
My
favorite modern printmaker was Edouard Jaquenoud. He was born in 1926
(my age) in Neuchatel, Switzerland. Like many European artists, he
wanted to study in France, but he had to wait until after the
Liberation, 1946, to make his first pilgrimage to Paris. The next
year he went to Spain to continue his work in ceramics and painting.
His
first show was held back in home town Neuchâtel in 1951. The
city gave him a grant that allowed him to return to Paris to study
and work. There he had a succession of exhibitions. He also was shown
in Caracas, Munich, Hamburg, Bayreuth, and Geneva.
He
settled on a French farm, where he proved his genius in creating
lithographic prints. Unlike the Vollard/Mourlot editions, Jacquenoud
restricted the tirage of any edition to a limit of 10, usually fewer.
When
he made his nature prints he would use a real leaf or other greenery,
ink it, and print. The leaf would be destroyed in the process, and
although a stone might be used for other elements in the print, the
print was limited to a single piece. This made them true monotypes.
A nature print by Jaquenoud using plants for a plate; edition limited to 1/1, a true monotype.
To
print his own work, Jaquenoud acquired the litho press that had
belonged to Ambroise Vollard. Besides its aged technical excellence,
the press inspired him to do great work with it. He could handle
the heavy work of manual printing because he had huge arms like a
National Football League lineman, which went well with his thick,
black beard.
I
met Edouard through my artist friend and tapestry cartonnier
Marc Petit in Paris. Among my large acquaintanceship with French
artists, he immediately became one of my favorite people.
In
the 1960s, I gave Jaquenoud his first exposure in the United States,
with exhibitions in a dozen cities. He already had been acquired by
actors Tyrone Power and Charles Laughton and artist Mark Tobey.
Jaquenoud’s
tragedy is that he was passionately in love with his wife and was
dependent upon her. When she died too young from cancer, it was more
than he could bear. Distraught, he hanged himself, ending an
extraordinary career.
Lawrence Jeppson is an art consultant, organizer and curator of art exhibitions, writer, editor
and publisher, lecturer, art historian, and appraiser. He is America's leading authority on
modern, handwoven French tapestries. He is expert on the works of William Henry Clapp, Nat
Leeb, Tsing-fang Chen, and several French artists.
He is founding president of the non-profit Mathieu Matégot Foundation for Contemporary
Tapestry, whose purview encompasses all 20th-century tapestry, an interest that traces back to
1948. For many years he represented the Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie and
Arelis in America.
Through the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, the American Federation of
Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, and his own Art Circuit Services he has been a contributor to
or organizer of more than 200 art exhibitions in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Taiwan.
He owns AcroEditions, which publishes and/or distributes multiple-original art. He was co-founder and artistic director of Collectors' Investment Fund.
He is the director of the Spring Arts Foundation; Utah Cultural Arts Foundation, and the Fine
Arts Legacy Foundation
Lawrence is an early-in-the-month home teacher, whose beat is by elevator. In addition, he has spent the past six years hosting and promoting reunions of the missionaries who served in the French Mission (France, Belgium, and Switzerland) during the decade after WWII.