Bert Gallery

What is Original Art?

Is it a Giclee?

Artists have long struggled with making a living. The introduction of printmaking and engraving helped to place multiples on the market and increased the artist’s potential income. However, new media often met with resistance from collectors and museums. Photography for instance, was not initially viewed as fine art but is now one of the hottest art forms in galleries and on the auction market.

As technology has advanced in the last few years, the giclee digital printing process has made a dramatic entrance into the art world.

Gicle is French for “to squirt,” and its derivative, giclée, is an adjective meaning, “squirted,” although one frequently hears that it means, “sprayed.” Now giclee is being used as a noun—referring to the printing process as well as the print made by that process. Today many galleries are showing and selling giclees. Images are generated from high-resolution digital scans or created on the computer and printed with archival inks onto various surfaces. Many artists feel that this type of printing is the most satisfying replica of their work because the giclee printing process provides better color accuracy than other means of reproduction. It offers unlimited edition size. The question remains for museums, curators, galleries and artists– Is giclee an artistic process or just a commercial reproduction?

This Bert Gallery exhibition features color and black-and-white woodcuts, lithographs, photographs and etchings—traditionally accepted multiples. The exhibit shows how introduction of art multiples shaped art history and describes the process for each technique.