Giclee Art Prints

When Gutenberg, around 1450, pieced together a logical sequence of metal prisms in his Strassbourg atelier, he gave the world the first printing press.
Since then, the printing process, year by year, has improved with new machines and new inks.

A new extraordinary technology came to the world in the past few years, a process of art replica so perfect that even artists confound the artwork replica with the original.
The new technology was in need of a name. Jack Duganne, the pioneer of the digital printing, coined the word Giclee and it stuck. “Any digital device has a nozzle that sprays ink or dye” he explained. “And I looked up for the word spray in French and it is gigler. So any object that is sprayed is a giclee.”

The giclee process uses incredibly accurate computer controlled jets to apply ink to watercolor paper, canvas or etching paper. These unique jets are able to vary the width of the ink stream to as small as 1/100th the width of human hair. It is this capability that gives the giclee art reproduction its beauty. Giclee art prints have a higher resolution than offset lithographs and the dynamic color range is greater than serigraphy.
Since no mechanical devices or screen are used. there are not visible dot screen patterns in the art replica.

The art reproduction has all the tonalities, colors and hues of the original painting
The giclee process begins with the input stage. A scan of the original painting or transparency createa a digital file. The scanning process is critical and requires the most technically advanced equipment. After the scan is complete, the resulting file will be entered into the computer, where the file must be color balanced and adjusted to match the original artwork. To make the final print matching or exceeding the original painting is an art in itself and calls for a great deal of patience and skill.

Giclee art replica prints are widely accepted at museums and galleries. Many museums in the United States and abroad have either mounted exhibitions of Giclée art replica prints or purchased prints for their permanent collections. These include: the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Guggenheim (New York), The Museum of Fine Art (Boston), The Philadelphia Museum, and The Smithsonian Institute. Additionally, many distinguished photographers and artists, among them: Andrew Wyeth, Jamie Wyeth, Joyce Tennison, Dennis Lewan, Peter Ralston, John Paul Caponigro, Hans Neleman, Anatole Krasnyansky, Raymond Meeks, Dennis Schultz, Peter Nelson and Richard Avedon produce works that are Giclée printed.