INTRODUCTION

Lithography is a planographic process, which means that a print is taken from a completely flat surface, unlike relief and intaglio printing which are raised or incised. In its simplest form lithography works due to the fact that water and grease do not mix. The artist draws on a stone or plate (the matrix) with a greasy drawing material and prints with greasy ink. Providing the matrix is kept damp throughout printing the water will be repelled by the greasy drawing material and hold on to the negative space. The greasy ink will only be attracted to the greasy drawing material and will not adhere to the parts of the matrix that contain water.

A BRIEF HISTORY

Lithography was invented in 1798 by Alois Senefelder in Bavaria, Germany. Senefelder was looking for a way to publish his music scores which, prior to the invention of lithography, would have been engraved into copper plates. Senefelder had purchased a block of Bavarian limestone to test for an engraving, which at that time would have been cheaper than buying copper plates.

Apparently Senefelder discovered lithography when he wrote down his mother’s laundry list on a block of limestone. He just so happened to be using an ink made up of pigment, soap and wax. He then tested this drawing material to see if it would work as an acid resist and later discovered that if the stone was kept damp, then the image could be inked up and the non-image areas would reject the ink. He referred to this as chemical printing and lithography, stone writing being just one aspect of this process. Now the term is used in reference to all aspects of chemical printing, both stone and plate. Lithography was used commercially to print labels, posters, packaging, newspapers, etc. Plate lithography was developed as early as 1840, as a cheaper and lighter alternative to stone. This was especially advantageous in commercial printing, as work could be produced at a faster pace. The lithographic print community has always benefited from developments in the commercial sector and when advances were made in photomechanical printing, fine art lithographers adapted this to suit their own needs.

Even though the principle of lithography is simple, it is in fact a rather complex process and a lithographic printer can train for years to master all of its complexities. For this very reason lithography has a strong tradition of collaboration, where the printer will deal with all of the technical aspects of the process and the artist will only worry about their concept and the artistic side of creation.

Previously, collaborations were between artists and commercial printers or at least with printers who started out in the commercial industry, with collaborations in the UK being recorded as early as 1803. When commercial printing developed further and became irrelevant to fine art printing, print studios were set up purely for collaborative purposes. The UK’s most renowned lithographic studio was The Curwen Studio, established in 1958 and managed by master printer Stanley Jones MBE. Prior to leading the new Curwen Studio, Jones had trained in lithography at the École des Beaux-Arts before working at Atelier Patris in Paris, at the time the