#etchings — Public Fediverse posts

The "Adam and Eve", Old Chelsea., 1879, United Kingdom, by James Whistler. Gift of Sir John Ilott, 1962. Te Papa (1962-0001-27)

One of art’s most inventive and influential printmakers, James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) made nearly 500 etchings over five decades, as well as some 180 lithographs. As a gifted young draftsman, he recognised the medium’s ability to record and reproduce sketches scratched quickly into the wax coating of copper plates; as a mature artist, he immersed himself in the complexities of etching, drypoint and controlled inking to produce striking works of astounding subtlety.
He spent some of his teenage years in London, living with his half-sister and her husband Francis Seymour Haden, a surgeon, avid etcher and Rembrandt collector. After his father’s death, Whistler returned to his native US and entered West Point Military Academy in 1851, studying art but failing elsewhere. A brief stint followed at the US Coast and Geodetic Survey, where he felt confined drawing maps but learned to etch and doodled figures reminiscent of the French caricaturist Paul Gavarni across the top of a topographic view.
Funds advanced by a family friend enabled the crucial move to Paris in 1855. Whistler took drawing classes, entered the studio of Charles Gleyre and, encouraged by Haden, began etching by 1857. Reproductive prints were still the norm for etching, so Whistler broke new ground as he toured Alsace-Lorraine and the Rhineland in 1858 to develop a series titled Douze eaux-forts d’après nature ( Twelve Etchings from Nature , or the "French Set"). Working out-of-doors, he drew onto copper plates, then bathed the exposed metal in acid in his room to etch printable lines. A forerunner of the etching revival, this first published set includes works from the tour, others created in Paris and portraits of Haden’s children. Ancient buildings and ordinary workers demonstrate sympathy for French Realism as espoused by Gustave Courbet. Auguste Delâtre, a master of "artistic printing," was enlisted to create the first twenty sets. Whistler and Delâtre then took the plates to London and worked with Haden to print fifty more, sending examples to the Paris Salon and Royal Academy in 1859.
Seeking new inspiration and broader support, Whistler moved to London in 1859 and lived in a wharf district below Tower Bridge. Commercial activity along the Thames, whose banks were densely lined with warehouses and wharves, inspired many etchings in the early 1860s, a selection published in 1871 as A Series of Sixteen Etchings of Scenes on the Thames (the "Thames Set"). These focus on the Pool of London—the furthest point upstream that large ships could navigate—combined with lyrical views of a quiet stretch of river near Chelsea, the artist’s home from 1863.
Whistler experimented with formal arrangements inspired by Japanese woodblock prints; imitating Hokusai and Hiroshige, he established distinct vertical and horizontal formats, defined space in startling new ways, and cropped forms with margins. He also began to wipe his inks expressively and to work in drypoint, preferring softer lines scratched directly into the copper for figures and portraits. Charles Baudelaire praised Whistler’s prints of this decade, but most English critics failed to appreciate his progressive vision and gave precedence to Haden.
The "First and Second Venice Sets", published in the 1880s, mark a highpoint of Whistler’s creative genius, the plates etched during a fourteen-month stay in Italy, beginning in September 1879. Evocative responses to the Venetian Lagoon, shadowy palaces on small canals, misty twilight and reflections that dance off water into dark passageways balance plane and recession, decorative line and evanescent tone. These works move beyond obvious japonisme and place Whistler at the forefront of the Aesthetic movement, with its celebration of visual beauty and comparisons between art and music.
London’s Fine Art Society had sponsored the Venetian trip, expecting the artist to return in three months with twelve plates ready to publish. But the journey came on the heels of a sensational and financially disastrous court case that Whistler brought against John Ruskin in 1877, reacting to his critical savaging of the painting Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket . Whistler won, but received only a farthing in damages, and was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1879. Venice offered a welcome respite and, as the artist lingered abroad, he made 50 etchings and 100 pastels.
Late in 1880, the Fine Art Society published Venice, a Series of Twelve Etchings , with the ink expertly manipulated in a manner that approaches monotype. Whistler also devised a distinct new presentation, trimming the paper close to the plate line with a small tab left below to contain his emblematic butterfly signature. When the gallery exhibited all the Venetian etchings in 188...

https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/38899

#Prints #Etchings #Drypoints #WorksOnPaper

Le Voyageur 3 (7 ex) : Etching, eau forte, white and black prints etching on Tieppolo paper, two 10x15cm prints December 2025/
SOLD OUT.

#contemporary_art #art #etchings #eauforte #abstractartwork #gravurecontemporaine #gravure #artlovers

Holes like a sun on both sides of universe (5 ex) : Etching, eau forte, white and black prints etching on Tieppolo paper, two 10x15cm prints December 2025/
2 left contact me.

#contemporary_art #art #etchings #eauforte #abstractartwork #gravurecontemporaine #gravure #artlovers

🎃 Halloween Art 🎃

Paintings and Etchings by Philadelphia born artist Petef Paone

#happyhalloween #halloween #peterpaone #art #artist #halloweenart #artworld #witches #witch #paintings #etchings #kunst #künstler #peinture #peintre #trickortreat

🎃 Halloween Art 🎃

Paintings and Etchings by Philadelphia born artist Peter Paone

#happyhalloween #halloween #peterpaone #art #artist #halloweenart #artworld #witches #witch #paintings #etchings #kunst #künstler #peinture #peintre #trickortreat

started a #wikipedia article on US artist Vernon Thomas (1894-1962): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Thomas_(artist) Her illustrations of children were used on the cover of Good Housekeeping several times in the 1934-1936 period. @wikiwomeninred @artinstitutechi #Etchings #Illustrator #Chicago @goodhousemag

Our newest exhibition, “A Perfect Model: Prints after Anthony van Dyck’s Portraits,” required some digging through the collection. We have more than 50 prints made after Van Dyck's portraits, not acquired all at once from a single gift, but over decades. It's been really neat to look through them and select the best of the best for this small show. Read more here: https://georgiamuseum.org/gmoa_blog/a-perfect-model-prints-after-anthony-van-dycks-portraits-opened-june-8/ #AnthonyVanDyck #Etchings

Our newest exhibition, “A Perfect Model: Prints after Anthony van Dyck’s Portraits,” required some digging through the collection. We have more than 50 prints made after Van Dyck's portraits, not acquired all at once from a single gift, but over decades. It's been really neat to look through them and select the best of the best for this small show. Read more here: https://georgiamuseum.org/gmoa_blog/a-perfect-model-prints-after-anthony-van-dycks-portraits-opened-june-8/ #AnthonyVanDyck #Etchings

Thanks for all your support, we really appreciate it - P&L

And thanks, too, to our local independent stockists who do a fine job in difficult times.

Here's a map of their locations (link in comments below).

#Edinburgh #ShopLocal #Prints #Cards #Etchings

Here are two #etchings we framed for #artist Inga Eicaite soon to be on show at the #WoolwichPrintFair in #London

https://woolwichprintfair.com/fair-details

At the artist's request, we attached her prints using insect pins.

#ArtFraming #FineArtFraming #PictureFraming

This copper plate is about to take the dip, fingers crossed, no turning back now…#etchings #printmaking

Second step, added #aquatint . Next step will be adding some shadows. #printstudio #print #etchings

My son's present to me this year: he visited my brothers #grave, cleaned it from moss and dirt, then took some #etchings. It's four hours drive away near #Bellingham #wa, and I don't get up there very often. #Unexpected #emotionally moving #christmas morning.

Port Lockroy - etching - 23x20 cm.

Sometimes I think making #etchings is just a really slow way of torturing myself. This one has been weeks of fiddling around trying to correct stuff that wasn't quite working. Still far from perfect, but...

#art #printmaking