A Couple More Texts on Copperplate Photogravure

Finding comprehensive texts on photogravure is a challenge in itself, if you are of the mind to try this extraordinary process. I briefly reviewed Copper Plate Photogravure: Demystifying the Process a few weeks back. It is still in print, and available on Amazon.com at the time of this writing. A second very useful text is […]

Thoughts on Copper Plate Photogravure

Back in California, jet-lagged as usual, watching the Criterion Collection Blu-ray version of the Monterey Pop Festival late at night. My son and I flew to our respective destinations Tuesday morning after a five day workshop with Jon Goodman studying copper plate photogravure. I remarked to Jon during the first couple days of the workshop […]

Copper Plate Photogravure

I’m sitting pre-dawn in a spartan room at an Econo Lodge in Hadley, Massachusetts. My son and I will start a photogravure workshop with Jon Goodman at 9AM this morning. I was finishing up a more careful read of David Morrish and Marlene MacCallum‘s text Copper Plate Photogravure: Demystifying the Process. Still in print, this […]

Artichoke Press

Andrew Cahan, purveyor of truly fine and rare photographic books, suggested during a conversation about Walery’s Nus, Cent photographies originales de Laryew some months back that I should get to know Jonathan Clark, who owns the fine printing firm, Artichoke Press, one town over from me in Mountain View. We finally got together last week […]

The Home and Haunts of Shakespeare

I’ve been hunting down examples of photogravures published around 1900. I’ve been using as a guide the descriptions of examples on the wonderful site photogravure.com. One book came up at a reasonable price on Biblio.com, The Homes and Haunts of Shakespeare, by James Leon Williams. What would I do without Wikipedia? While perhaps more known […]

Camera Work XXVI

Widely regarded as the publication that changed the perception of photography from one of purely mechanical reproduction to a fine art, Alfred Stieglitz’s Camera Work is an exquisite magazine. Demanding the utmost quality in photographic reproduction, Stieglitz illustrated the magazine with some of the finest photogravure work seen at the time. Published between 1903 and […]

The Death of Photogravure

The death of photogravure may not be exaggerated. In about a month, I will be studying the traditional dust grain photogravure process with Jon Goodman. This was rescheduled from June. Up until now I have been playing with polymer plate photogravure. I want some hands on experience with the traditional copper plate method. A couple […]

Susan Middleton

Kathan Brown left a comment on my brief accolade-filled review of Crown Point Press books on etching. She mentioned they are coming out with a book on photogravure, and encouraged me to look at Susan Middleton’s video on the Magical Secrets web site. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. Susan is doing color-registered photogravures, such as Requiem, 2008 […]

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám

I looked in vain for a copy of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Kháyyám (Persian: رباعیات عمر خیام) from Dodge Publishing in 1905 with photogravure illustrations by Adelaide Hanscom. Biblio.com, my great source for used books, showed only the later copies with colored (halftone?) illustrations. On the off chance they were misunderstood by the […]

Sonnets from the Portuguese

I went up to the Antiquarian Book Fair in San Francisco this past weekend. There were many bookstores selling their wares ranging from illuminated manuscripts to 8″ x 10″ glossies of Bettie Page ($500, signed – thanks, I already have one). I was looking for examples of photogravures in books. I stopped at several booths, […]