WHAT IS GICLÉE PRINT?

Museums and galleries, both in the U.S. and abroad, have given wide acceptance to Giclée prints by either purchasing Giclées for their permanent collections or putting them on exhibition. Among these museums are the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), the Guggenheim Museum (NY), the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.).

The Giclée method of fine art reproduction has taken the art world by storm. Excellent artistic rendering, superior quality, high longevity and relative affordability have converged in the Giclée print. The art world has responded enthusiastically, to the point where sales of Giclée prints now measures in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually, rising rapidly each year. This situation offers those who appreciate fine art an unparalleled and unprecedented opportunity to acquire, at affordable prices, the highest quality fine art reproductions.

A Giclée (from the French, meaning "to spray") print is produced using modern continuous tone inkjet printing technology. The highest form of Giclée is the Iris Print, named after Iris®, the makers of the finest brand of continuous tone printers available today. The production process is as follows: the original work of art is first rendered into digital form either by scanning the original with a high resolution digital camera or by scanning a photographic transparency of the original on a drum scanner.
Once the image is in digital form, the artist and the master printer work together to create a print that is true to the original. At this point, the image can be printed on the media chosen by the artist, the most common being canvas and traditional watercolor paper. Making a Giclée print is a slow process, requiring specialized equipment and techniques and meticulous work on the part of the artist and printer to arrive at the best combination of sharpness, accurate color, and artistic interpretation.

The resulting print is nothing short of astonishing. Giclée prints look and feel like an original work of art, and are the best possible reproduction of the original. They also have a much greater longevity than traditional lithographic prints. Giclée prints, depending on the specific ink and medium, have a longevity rating (before any fading will start to occur) as high as 80 years as opposed to ratings of less than 10 years for a typical lithograph.

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