HET NEDERLANDS STEENDRUKMUSEUM
Chapter 1
Peter-Louis Vrijdag is the founder of the Dutch Museum of
Lithography, which is based on his personal collection. In this
chapter on the “prehistory” of the museum he explains what
prompted him to start his collection and why he decided to
set up a museum. In his own words : “A mixture of
admiration, amazement, curiosity, a collector’s mania and
sadness about the threatening disappearance of impressive
techniques resulted in a passion to show other people what I
had learnt about the process.
Ir.Peter-Louis Vrijdag
The prehistory of the Dutch Museum of Lithography
I was born into a family of printers. In 1905 Grandfather Louis started a firm in Eindhoven that
printed musical scores. Very soon afterwards letter-printing was replaced by lithography and
music printing was replaced by labels and rings for the flourishing cigar industry. At the time
there were thousands of small tobacco factories in the Netherlands. Printing for them was a
specialty that required a lot of skill. First the design for the label or ring was made. This was
done by specialist artists, almost always anonymous. They drew the most beautiful and
colourful designs with poster paint and they added gold decorations with plaster of Paris to
provide the relief. For the designer it was not concerned with how many colours he used and
he mixed his paint merrily. Once the design had been approved to the satisfaction of the owner
of the printing-firm, it was up to the chromolithographer to play his part.
That was quite a task. He had to draw the design on the Solnhofen stone in such a way that the
resulting printing result would come as close to the artistic original as possible. It was
impossible to print every colour the artist had used. It was not feasible to feed sheets of paper
through the press dozens of times in order to print one for each colour : that was too
expensive. Instead the chromolithographer resorted to the method called dotting. By such
means he was able to vary a colour from light to dark using dots of varying size and placing
them closer or farther apart from each other.
Because of the fact that dots of different sizes and colours could be made to fall alongside fell
alongside and on top of one another when printed, new colours could be produced. In this way
the chromolithographer managed to simulate the many colours of the design with a limited
number of printing colours, though there were often as many as six or twelve colours and
sometimes even more. Such a chromolithographer was a specialist craftsman. (There were no
women in this trade in the Netherlands).
The beginning of the collection
As a young chemistry engineer I joined the printing firm in 1967 when my father was in charge.
I focused on the here and now, on what to improve further, on automation and on improving
productivity. I cared less about the past until, about ten years later, I happened to search the
archive of the firm to see what was lying there in store : beautiful brochures and company
pictures and very colourful labels, especially cigar box labels and rings. What quality! And that
was what the chromolithographers managed to achieve without the help of either
photography or a computer. I was so impressed by this display of craftsmanship that I decided
that I wanted more examples that I started to collect cigar box labels. But they were just one of
many categories of beautiful labels and packagings that used to be printed by lithography. So I
began to collect labels for wine and spirits, soap-packagings and chocolate tins as they were
also printed by lithography, only indirectly using a rubber coated cylinder. Many other things
had been printed from stone: posters, show-cards, maps, book illustrations, political cartoons,
toys, playing-cards and artistic prints. So I started to collect these too which was easy enough in
the Netherlands and Belgium and could also be combined with my many (business) trips to
France, Germany, the USA, Cuba, Russia and India. But what about the means of printing all
those beautiful things?
So the collection was enriched with lithographic hand presses and machines.( The latter
brought all the way from St. Petersburg are another story). The graphic specialist Henk
Bijneveldt was in charge of the restoration. Lithographic stones were also collected, as were
machines for grinding stones, a Fougeadoire apparatus and tools for the lithographer, not
forgetting literature about lithography, both technical and historical. For while collecting, I
wanted to know all about lithography and stone-printing. I was at auction house Reiss & Co in
great excitement when on 15 October 2002 a copy of the original Vollständiges Lehrbuch der
Steindruckerey by Alois Senefelder came up for sale. When I managed to obtain it I was totally
delighted, though it was very expensive as an Englishman also wanted to buy it!
The Carolus building
The firm, my home and a transit shed in the neighborhood provided accommodation for all the
goodies. My wife Loes was wondering the whole time what I was going to do with all this
material. So was I. Of course this important historical heritage had to be kept intact and the
formidable craftsmanship of lithographic artists could not be allowed to fall into oblivion. The
time came for me to put everything in order and to show it all to interested people. And I
started looking for the right premises. That was in the mid-nineties. I was to retire in the year
2000 and then I would have a lot of free time. Together with an architect friend we looked into
an old cigar factory in which a sports school was housed, but the cost of re-structure and
restoration was too high.
At the end of 1996 things began to happen. In Valkenswaard the Carolus building, a previous
convent and hospital, became available. The town council wanted to keep it as a municipal
heritage building and wanted to give it a cultural destination. Through Ko Hooijschuur, member
of the town council in Valkenswaard and deputy manager of the Vrijdag printing firm an initial
discussion with Mayor Tops was arranged in 1996. This resulted into the idea to add to the
cluster of cultural institutions in that building a Dutch Museum of Lithography along the line of
a preliminary plan I had for the museum.
After a time the political discussion over the Carolus buildings seemed to reach an impasse and
we were going nowhere. Fortunately, things started to move again one and a half years later. In
December 1999 the Mayor and Alderman of Culture and the greater part of the committee for
Culture visited the storage shed where the collection of printing presses was housed and later
my home, where they could form a picture about the rest of the collection. Everyone
concerned was positive about the collection and the plans made for the museum.
The foundation of the museum
As an engineer in chemistry and a graphic entrepreneur I was not really a museum man. But in
1997 I had become chairman of the Board of the Printing Museum in Etten-Leur. That provided
training and a good insight in the museum world. I understood that running a museum is highly
demanding to be successful and it requires “cultural management”.
After 25 years of running Vrijdag printing firm with 120 employees I had some experience in
running an organization. It was now time to form a Board. After a number of preliminary talks I
succeeded in attracting the right people that complemented each other with their specific
skill. For the furnishing of the museum : Henks Schellens, industrial designer and former design
manager with Philips Lighting; for publicity Ton Koolen, director of advertising bureau Visicom;
for contacts with the graphic industry, furnishing the museum workshop and recruiting of
volunteers : Ko Hooijschuur, former technical deputy director of Printing firm Vrijdag. As
secretary of the Board we had : Henk Gerris, former chief conditioning with “De Dommelsche
Bierbrouwerij” (InBev) and for finances Jan de Wit, Registered Accountant and former partner
of Ernst & Young. For the co-ordination and external affairs, I myself acted as chairman.
“ The Lithographic Museum of the Foundation Vrijdag” was founded on 13 April 2000.
However, the museum is called “Nederlands Steendrukmuseum” (NSM) which sounds better
for the public than the official name. The first Board meeting took place at my home on 12
January 2000. We talked extensively about what kind of museum it must be: a static permanent
exhibition, where visitors can come and see the former significance of lithography and
lithographic printing ? Or a museum, where in addition to the permanent exhibition,( which
would be renewed from time to time), the old techniques would be kept alive, prints made,
printing demos given, workshops organized, educational (school)programmes are carried out,
guided tours take place and the museum promoted. The Board is unanimously in favour of the
second option: a “living museum” offering a lot of interaction for the visitors.
The consequence of this is, of course, that much more organisation and co-ordination is
required and that a large team of volunteers is needed to implement that multitude of museum
tasks. During the Board meeting of January 2001 Board member Ko Hooijschuur reported that
already 27 people had come forward as volunteers. Some were former teachers of the Graphic
School and another part were former employees of the three most important printing firms in
Eindhoven, those of Vrijdag, Gestel and Eindhoven Packaging. Rivals became colleagues, a
lithographic workshop was organised for the volunteers and subsequently it was discussed how
they could best contribute to the various tasks in the museum. It is inevitable that I shall be the
curator because of my knowledge of the collection. One day we hired three rooms in the
municipal theatre in order to arrange the “movable” part of my collection and which was to
form the permanent exhibition in the museum. As many tables were put in the room as there
would be glass cases. Then it became very clear that there is a big difference between having a
collection and presenting a museum exhibition that is attractive and informative to the visitor.
Three days of intensive work followed but after that the story-line was there and the right
objects were on the right tables. Designer Henk Schellens started to make the drawings and the
mock-ups for the arrangements of the various rooms and we decided that he should design to
have the glass cases. He designed the furniture, too, in beautiful beech wood.
A festive opening
After all these enthusiastic efforts the museum was opened with a fantastic program on a
beautiful day on 21 September 2001. Everywhere lithographic and lithographic printing
demonstrations were being given, even using an exact replica of Aloys Senefelder’s first
“Stangenpresse” (=pole press).The many guests were pleasantly surprised. The gift, a beautiful
litho keepsake, drawn on stone by the artist Poen de Wijs and printed by the technical staff of
the museum under the supervision of master printer Gertjan Forrer was appreciated by
everyone. All the guests enjoyed themselves and so did the Board and the volunteers. The
opening was counted a great success.
Now it is 2011 and the museum has been in existence for 10 years. Approximately 50,000
people of all ages have been surprised by the great and colourful role lithography has played
over the last two centuries. And it still plays an important role because offset printing, the most
important printing process of today, is based on exactly the same principle as lithography and
in partnership with photography which in one of its advanced forms is used in manufacturing
electronic chips. The founding fathers of the museum are now retired and, with the exception
of myself, have been succeeded by new Board members. The four honorary Board members
served the museum well. The museum is run on a daily basis by director Frank van Oortmerssen
and his assistant Lowies Giesen with the help of 45 enthusiastic volunteers : desk assistants,
printers and lithographers, guides, exhibition staff and others. The museum is enjoying
increasing popularity: initially in the region, then nationally and gradually also internationally.
Donations are being received, among them 100 stones with maps on them from the land
registry which carries the responsibility of preserving the cultural heritage.
The town of Valkenswaard is delighted with the activities of the museum and provides 30% of
the annual budget. Keeping the infrastructure of sponsors, donors and friends requires a lot of
attention. Applications for project grants are labor intensive but fortunately proved very
successful. The museum has been a registered museum since 2004 and meets all the
requirements of a public museum. The temporary exhibitions are always a pleasure to
experience…
Running a museum is almost like running a business with its visitors as valued customers. It is a
challenge to make it a pleasure for all concerned. My father said : “Such a museum will bring
you a lot of worries”. My wife said : “Be sure you know what you are doing”. They were both
right but it has also given great satisfaction – to many people
COLUMNS
About the sense and nonsense of lithography - page 12
It is a pity , but true : Lithography has got no place whatsoever as a means of reproduction.
Making lithos in order to reproduce images is the same as sweeping the street with a
toothbrush! It is clumsy, expensive, slow and in comparison with the present reproduction
techniques is also pitifully bad as far as quality is concerned. If you have a beautiful drawing and
want twenty copies of it then I would advise everybody to go to the copy shop on the corner
and for less than 5 cents a copy you will have them in, I guess, twenty seconds”. Do lithographic
presses only belong to our cultural heritage ? Only to show how things worked in the past? Just
like steam locomotives? The workshops of coopers? Fortunately not! The reproduction is no
longer the motivation. Artists still make use of lithography because it offers them unique
expressive possibilities. You can produce raster less half-tones in a way that no other process
can. And that capability is an additional advantage. Fortunately. Otherwise I would be out of a
job.
The fine arts make use of all the old and new graphic techniques. By nature artists are always
looking for new images produced in a new manner. Graphic workshops at academies are
nowadays at least half-filled with computers and large printers. Professional knowledge comesdirectly or indirectly- from the graphic industry. It is sufficiently kept up-to-date in silkscreen
printing, etching and relief printing that students and artists can turn to them if they want to.
But the distance between lithography and the graphic industry has become very great. Until the
seventies of the twentieth century you could find, somewhere at the back covered in dust, a
lithographic press. And there was always an old printer nearby who had started his career at
such a press. And if necessary, copies of “Artistic Work” as it was called could be printed
without difficulty. That is something of the past. Some time ago workshop assistants at the
academies were accomplished lithographic printers from the graphic industry. They no longer
exist. Consequently, a dire situation has arisen!
It hurts me hearing nonsense being spoken in graphic workshops and at art academies. It also
hurts me to see how beautiful stones become a toneless black mass by lack of craftsmanship. It
is sad to see artists watch contentedly as if a resulting print was exactly what they wanted. In
the country of the blind the one-eyed person is king. That is bad, but it is even worse when they
often want to be two-eyed. It is due to the ambition of an individual artist that – despite this –
lithos are made that are reasonably printed. I have been lucky that I learned the craft
thoroughly and well from David Schmidt and Kees Slegt. Now it is my turn to pass on knowledge
of the craft, but that is not my only task. Anybody that wishes lithography well must be deeply
convinced of such a responsibility. The Dutch Museum of Lithography has also an important
role to fulfil in this respect. If we fail to live up to this task, lithography has no more than a place
in industrial history. And that would be a great pity!
Aad Hekker, Master stoneprinter, Amsterdam.
POEN DE WIJS – page 14
My first confrontation with lithography turned out to be a disaster. I was at the art academy
and during the very first class my teacher pointed to a stone weighing 60 kilos from which an
old drawing had to be removed. ”Have you got a piece of sandpaper for me?” I asked him. He
was annoyed by my stupidity – I didn’t even know what the word LITHOGRAPHY meant – and
scornfully he told me to grind down the image with a second stone with water and sand
between them. I had to move the second stone around in circular movements and add a little
bit of water now and again. That was a tough and dirty job. A clumsy movement whilst turning
the stones caught my little finger to be squashed between the stone and an upright edge. I
cursed loudly. For weeks the swollen finger caused me a lot of trouble and from the onset
could have been the end to a possible love for lithography. The few lithos I made at the
academy did not inspire me at all. Lithography was a closed book to me until I got to know the
Swiss “Steindrucker” Ernst Hanke years later. When I first saw the realistic lithos of Hanke I
could hardly believe my eyes.
At first I did not trust the man as the prints made me think of some cheap reproduction
technique. Such perfection in richness of colour, in nuances of tone, in structure and texture, all
that could surely not have been accomplished on a stone ? Not until I visited the
“Steindruckerei Hanke” in Switzerland did I come to believe it. Ernst Hanke printed for wellknown “realistic” artists from all points of the compass: for Paul Wunderlich, Michael Parkes,
Vladimir Gazovic, Dagmar Mezricki and many others. Over the many years of research and
experimentation craftsmanship reached unprecedented levels.
Ernst and I have now worked together for more than 20 years. Together we have made many
editions. We have become friends. And yet I meet many artist-colleagues who, in their turn, do
not believe that what Ernst and I have made are original lithographs.
Worldwide the sale of lithographs has collapsed. That is because of the rise of digital printing
techniques: it appears that the average man would rather buy a reproduction on canvas than a
handmade print. Ernst Hanke’s press has ceased working. And I do not draw on stone any
longer: I cannot afford to store piles of papers, lithographs that nobody wants to buy any more.
Such is the course of history and certainly of printing generally : one technique disappears, the
other appears. Lithography has flourished for two centuries but now seems to have definitely
become an art in a museum.
Long live the Dutch Museum of Lithography!
Poen de Wijs,painter, artist, The Hague.
It is still possible… - page 24
In the forties and fifties of the last century lithography was being increasingly replaced by
“product-proof” and faster (rotary) offset techniques. The lithographic presses had a “stop
moment” when printing and because of this the speed of printing was reduced. Offset printing
and the handling of photographic plates became more and more perfect, as a result of which
lithographic drawing was not any longer worth doing and it disappeared from the graphic
production process. Printing firms that held on to printing from stones gradually disappeared.
Some kept their presses and were able to comply with the reduced demand. What work that
remained was mainly printing with and for artists.
Artists have always played a great part in lithography, because –before photography was
introduced- their drawing skills were necessary to put the pictures on the stone. Printing-firms
employed specialists for this purpose: lithographers who could draw the illustrations that were
wanted using many lithographic techniques. But there were also of course the free or
independent artists who did not come from the lithographic trade such as painters, designers,
illustrators, sculptors etc. Think of Toulouse Lautrec, Steinlen, Miro and Jan Sluijters who drew
directly on the stones themselves.
Later a new trade came into being : that of ”collaborating printmaker” as the English call it.
Building an image together with the artist, exploring the limits of technique, colour and form.
Sometimes with great difficulty, sometimes with an unexpected result. As a technical specialist I
will see to the technical pitfalls : to guide without interfering is really the core of this activity
that I like so much. Artists not hindered by lithographic knowledge make the most beautiful
graphic pictures. That is the task I like most.
All those different kinds of imagery- from minuscule super realistic crayon drawings to large
expressionistic wash drawings. So many different approaches and people, from so many
different countries, with even more different forms of images. They have all found their place
in lithography over the years
It is wonderful to see that there is such a unique museum as the Dutch Museum of Lithography
which allows us to see how printing was done in the past and which shows that it can still be
done… Preserving the professional knowledge of the past, passing it on, and making
contemporary pictures. A great example! Here’s to the next ten years!
Gertjan Forrer, master stone printer, Weesp.
How I started as a lithographer- page 26.
While at primary school time in Hilversum(1939-1945) the teachers thought that I could draw
well. For six years I got high marks for drawing, behavior and industry. After that I went on
secondary school but that proved to be no great success because my passion for drawing was
greater than that for homework. Then I attended a five-year vocational evening school in
Hiversum. Finally I undertook a test to help me to choose a profession. And it appeared that I
was very much suited to studying lithography.
I then found employment with the lithographic printing firm “Kunst en Adelt” in my native
town of Weesp. There I followed an apprenticeship for four years attending theory classes for
the whole day on Saturdays at the Amsterdam Graphic School. (See my apprentice booklet in
the archive of the Dutch Museum of Lithography). I took classes with Mr Wester from 1948 till
1953 to become a “general lithographer”. There were several disciplines such as “chromolithography” and “lithographic writer” and these two led to a qualification as a “general
lithographer”.
At the lithographic printing-firm I had to make labels for tinplate factories and also large size
film posters with the hand drawn portraits of film stars. I drew these on a large scale on zinc
plates working with airbrush technique and lithographic crayon.
From the beginning I was made to make label designs for clients for such products as fruit etc.
The manager had known my father who was a creative artist and industrial designer and he also
wanted to give me a chance in that field. Of course, it is and was not the custom to design
something simply for yourself. After all, it is a task you had to carry out for something to be
printed through a design that had been handed to you. I chose this trade on purpose in order to
specialize further as a graphic designer.
From 1953 till 1955 I had to join the army and after that I responded to an advertisement of the
Royal Cacao and Chocolate manufacturer C.J.van Houten & Zoon in Weesp. They asked for
somebody who had attended a graphic school and was good at drawing. I was invited by Erik
Thorn Leeson, the first designer with Van Houten. I had to do a small test: to draw the letter
“O” just by hand. On seeing it he said: OK you can stop already. I have seen enough! And I was
immediately employed! So at the beginning of 1957, when I was 22, I started as an assistant
package designer in the Design Department. In 1963 Erik Leeson left to teach at the Royal
Academy in Amsterdam and I became head of the Design Department.
Now I am a free man and I can practice as I like. I mainly occupy myself with making lithos. An
example of this is the completion of a poster designed by my father Thom Posthuma Sr. in 1920
for Van Houten which was printed in 6 colours and published by the Museum of Lithography in
Valkenswaard. My own lithos have been printed by master lithographer and stone printer
Gertjan Forrer in the so-called “lost stone technique”.
Thomas Posthuma, Master lithographer, Weesp.
See: www.thomasposthuma.nl
Musée vivante … page 37
My first contacts with lithography were in Hasselt in the lithographic printing-firm of Roosen
where a stone printer taught me the first principles. In the beginning the printing results were
not so good because among other things the drawing became blackish through the ink. But
drawing on a stone gave me a free feeling thanks to the different techniques.
Later I attended an intensive workshop stone printing of which two famous Czechs were in
charge : Rudolf Broulim(master stoneprinter ) and Oldrich Kulhanek(master lithographer). This
workshop was held in Alde Biezen(Bilzen) and was very professional. A lot of attention was also
paid to chromolithography.
Lithography was at that moment a new technique in my bookplate making. Through the
bookplate world I came into contact with Rolf Munzner, professor at the Hochschule fur Grafik
und Buchkunst in Leipzig. He applies the fantastic “Springschraber technique” and produces
very beautiful lithos. This was for me a challenge to try out this technique.
During the time that I taught graphic techniques at the Higher Institute in Hasselt I regularly
made use of lithography but after I retired there I have not touched a stone for fifteen years by
lack of a stone printing press.
Thanks to the bookplate exchange day of the Dutch society “Exlibriswereld” I again got an
opportunity to draw on a stone and to have it printed there. In that “musee vivante” a very
active, skilled and sympathetic group of stone printers has taken care of me, for which I am
very grateful and I hope to be able to make very beautiful lithos with them for a very long time.
Hedwig Pauwels,
Former professor of Graphic Techniques
Higher Insitute in Hasselt(Belgium)
Senefelder and the “Playboy technique” - page 60
It is a pleasure to write a column for this museum book. My first experiences with lithography
and stone printing were at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz during my study of
books, script and printing. But I was not entirely satisfied with my theoretical and historical
education. However, I then got the opportunity to co-operate with the printing department at
the “Landesmuseum für Technik und Arbeit” in Mannheim. The head of that department, the
chief curator Dr.Gerhard Kilger, not only taught me the theory and practice of putting on
exhibitions, but I was also made familiar with the techniques of artistic lithography in the
workshop of the Heidelberg art society. I learned all the important aspects of this exacting
printing process from grinding lithographic stones and drawing on them including etching and
printing.
The discovery of the invention by Senefelder meant for me an excellent opportunity to combine
my theoretical knowledge of printing history with my hobby of calligraphy. During my first
efforts on stone I also wanted to try out different techniques and apply themes from the history
of script. In this way the lithograph “Don’t waste my time!” was produced, pictured next to this
text. It was the result of a combination of drawing with tusche, litho mezzotint and the
transfer technique. In addition I chose, as a special challenge, a technique which because of its
unusual name had drawn my attention : the “Playboy technique”. Dr. Kilger described this
technique in his workshop book as follows:
“The grease content of printed pictures in magazines can be used for lithograph : the sheet of
paper is laid on the heated stone with the picture facing downwards. After that the printing ink
is loosened with a cotton swab, drenched in a solution of nitric acid; the paper is then firmly
rubbed down with a dry swab until the picture is visible on the stone. The Playboy magazine,
through which this technique was discovered, is very suitable for this because of its high
percentage of grease in the printing ink. The grease is then gummed and left for 15 minutes.
Then the stone is inked until the image attracts the black printing colour. Then the stone can be
etched in the normal way”.* I keep the last copies of this litho at my home and I am still
surprised that the “Playboy technique” is so little known among lithographers. Therefore I am
eager to use this museum book as 8uan opportunity to draw attention to this forgotten
technique. Who would ever have thought that there would be a connection between Alois
Senefelder and Hugh Hefner ?
 Gerhard Kilger : Künstlerische Lithografie. Ein Werkstattbuch aus dem Stiefelhof in
Tübingen. Verlag Tübinger Chronik 1979. Page 64.
Dr. Roger Münch,
Director Deutsches Zeitungsmuseum, Wadgassen near Saarbrucken.
A lot of fun, Stone printing! – page 63
It is a hell of a job to recognize those old stone printing techniques! For years I have given
courses in identifying historical printing techniques. A litho chalk drawing is no problem but
after that the difficulties really start. Has that letterhead been carried out in a lithographic
engraving or is it a litho pen drawing made with a fine pen on a smoothly polished stone ?
Look, relief printing can be recognized from the “ink-squash”, with a slightly thick build-up of
ink around the edges of the printing-type. Very easy. But unfortunately you will also see an
”ink-squash” around every dot in a chalk litho of which the stone has been heavily etched
before printing.
I have taught my students that you come across real gradations of grey in copperplate printing.
Wrong! Have a look at not too heavily printed chalk lithos and also in lithographic engravings
and you will also find them : marks that are printed with less pressure than normal and that
look grey, when magnified, where a black should be. As you know, a stone attracts ink or it
does not : water and grease, you know.
In brief, the possibilities in lithography are legion: on a rough stone or on a polished stone,
with crayon or tusche, scraped, scratched, with the help of photography- direct or indirect by
way of transfer paper – what was not possible ?
Determining the technique used on old prints and other printed matter generally causes
enough problems. But nowhere it is so difficult as with lithography. That is a technique that you
should recognize best from small mistakes. A white scratch, caused by one just bigger grain of
carborundum when graining the stone, very small white dots in a black area caused by too little
pressure when printing, a change in the texture of the paper along the edges where the scraper
stopped, some minute black dots outside the image, a minute difference in height between
printing and non-printing area. However, if the litho has been made according to the “rules of
the craft”, then you will look in vain for such mistakes. A perfect litho, yes, but is it a transfer or
has the image been put on paper by photography ? Lithography : extremely difficult !
Johan de Zoete, photo and print historian,
curator Museum Enschede, Haarlem
View of the future – page 66
Lately much has changed in the field of graphic art and interest in prints has declined
considerably. Graphic artists can now make use of new devices which have not remained
without consequences for the study of “classical” graphic techniques. Sometimes, however,
the combination of approaches leads to surprisingly interesting results. I, myself, prefer to work
on stone which in my opinion is irreplaceable as a carrier of images in artistic lithography.
Personally I believe that lithography and lithographic printing will continue to exist and that it
will continue to fascinate.
In art education lithography is often relegated to the background but fortunately there are
exceptions, places such as the Printmaking Department at the Antwerp Academy where it is
still taught. Professor Ingrid Ledent is in charge here and through her dedication, enthusiasm
and skills she manages to motivate and win over her students for this craft. Thanks to
lithography as an artistic medium, numerous highly original prints have been created by artists,
but I am also full of admiration for the achievements and the artistic craftsmanship of old
lithographers, engravers and printers.
Rudolf Broulim , master stoneprinter, Ekeren(near Antwerp)
“Symbiosis” – page 67
My co-operation with Rudolf Broulim began more than 30 years ago. I remember vividly our
first meeting in the lithographic workshop at the Academy for Applied Arts in Prague. Rudolf
was at the start of his career and fortunately he was assisted by Oldrich Eiselt, the doyen of
Czech lithographers, a brilliant craftsman who lovingly passed on the fruits of his experience to
the young adept.
Rudolf emigrated to Belgium in 1980 which meant that I could resume our Prague co-operation.
It is always a delight for me to be able to create lithos in his studio and have them printed there
and recall with pleasure the atmosphere in his first workshop in Beveren, later on in
Zwijndrecht and finally in Ekeren(Antwerp). As an artist I know exactly how to put a drawing on
a stone but then it is up to the master printer to make sure that the creation on stone is printed
as well as possible. The graphic process then turns out to be a symbiosis of both the work of the
artist and that of the printer. Many of my lithos originated in Rudolf’s workshop such as for
example “Special Dialogues” and in particular “Triptyque” on the theme of Job.
One small litho has also a special history. After the revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989 Rudolf
and I made a print together with the Flemish artist Walter Brems, the proceeds of which were
donated to a Prague clinic for children suffering from cancer. It was a beautiful projec : this was
our contribution tor a changed, free country.
As for myself, I hope to be able to continue working with Rudolf for a very long time as I can
say whole-heartedly that he is a very remarkable stone printer.
Oldrich Kulhanek, Artist, Prague.
A Victorian gift book in the Special Collections of the UvA – page 90
In Victorian England December was traditionally the time in which the “éditions de luxe”
perched the bookshop windows. They were very well produced. They contained pictures in
colour -wood-engraved or lithographed pictures - and were bound in attractive covers.
Selections from the work of British poets were in great demand every Christma : The Victorians
liked to read poetry. In 1860 the gift book “Three gems in one setting” was published with,
among others, work by the “poet laureate” Alfred Tennyson.
By November the publishing firm W.Kent & Co had advertised the collection in ”The Times”:
“This book, as its name implies, is a perfect [gem]. It needs but an inspection to make every
lover of the fine arts anxious to possess a copy”. “Three gems” is indeed a luxuriously produced
edition. Yet, on 24 December a critical review appeared in the same paper: “…we take up
another book resplendent with gilded arabesques, enclosing a series of insignificant pictures to
illustrate….an incongruous triad here bracketed together under the title of ‘Three gems in one
setting’. We particularly object to this setting as pretentious and meaningless, and confess an
inclination to try the experiment whether the gems are combustible”.
The linen cover was certainly not cheap. It shows abundant blind and gold tooling and a
chromolitho on lay has been stuck on the cover. The text pages had gilt edges. As the edition
was bound in batches there are different versions, for example in another linen colour. A small
label stuck on the inside back cover tells us that the binding was executed by Leighton, Son and
Hodge. This London firm was one of the great industrial binders of the time. Who designed the
cover is unknown. The book, however, was also offered in goatskin but for a considerably
higher price.
The pictures and decorations on the eighteen pages, printed on one side only, were drawn by
Anne Lydia Bond, who also worked for the rival firm of Routledge. Bond’s pictures were put on
stone in various colours and gold by the London lithographer David Brand. Chromolithography
was pre-eminently the colour illustration process of the second half of the nineteenth century,
although wood-engravings in colour were a serious rival until the end of that period. The text is
handwritten in the style of the popular nineteenth century letters of Didot and it is
lithographically printed. In this way text and image could be carried out using one graphic
technique.
Mathieu Lommen
Curator Graphic Design, University of Amsterdam.
Anne Lydia Bond, “Three gems in one setting : The poet’s song, Tennyson: Field flowers,
Campbell; Pilgrim fathers, Mrs. Hemans”. London : W. Kent & Co., 1860. 18 x 22 cms.
Tetterode Collection, Bijzondere Collecties, University of Amsterdam.
Paul Wunderlich 1927-2010 – page 92
In the autumn of 1972 I met Paul Wunderlich at Matthieu Ltd in Dielsdorf near Zürich. As a
taker of proofs in this lithographic printing-firm I saw his lithographs for the first time. One of
my first jobs was small corrections on the stones, the proofs had already been made but the
edition had not yet been printed. During my training as a future offset printer we learned the
trade thoroughly. We practiced all aspects of printing, grinding stones, etching, making proofs
and transferring. After a few years as an offset printer I was lucky to find a job as a stone printer
with Matthieu Ltd. At that time stone printing was already rare.
Under the guidance of Walter Schärer, a 70-year-old stone printer, I refreshed my knowledge
and began to put it into practice. At the outset I was more of a spectator than a printer of Paul
Wunderlich’s work. As he already had a reputation in lithographic circles I, as a beginner, was
not given his lithographed stones to print. So, what could I do? I observed Paul Wunderlich at
work. I watched him draw with wash tusche from Klinger and Rohrer and how he sprayed fine
tints. In my free time I ground a good stone and put a drawing on it. Then I sprayed the nuances
with an airbrush and with as many grey shades as possible. After that I etched and prepare the
stone and proofed it. It took a lot of time and trouble before my teacher was satisfied with my
work. And in this way I was able to prepare for the first time a drawing by Paul Wunderlich.
Everything went well. The first proof was made and Paul Wunderlich was pleased with the
result.
Thus I slowly met his demands and I learned more from myself. Paul Wunderlich was one of the
few artists who tried to get the most out of a printing. At the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg
he taught how to print from a stone. As a professor in the graphic art department he printed
for himself and other artists over several years. In contrast to other artists he knew what it was
all about and how to make the most of the many possibilities of lithography. He could play with
this printing technique and has never shrunk from trying anything new. He often came into the
printing shop and said: “What do you think, would it be possible if…?” We tried and mostly
succeeded, and in that way we made progress.
When he came and worked in Dielsdorf, he concentrated on lithography for a whole week. That
is to say, he arrived on a Saturday morning and immediately started making drawings on
stones. On Sunday evening the first stones were ready and to be etched. On Monday mornings
the stones were prepared and sometimes the first proof was printed. And so it went on the
whole week. Once he drew 7 lithos in one week together with all the colour stones and we
prepared them and we made proofs. At that time there were only three people printing and
proofing at Matthieu Ltd. His slogan was : “The impossible doesn’t exist, everything has to be
tried out”. At the time he was 45 and I was a young man of just 25 . We worked together at
Matthieu’s for 11 years.
In the summer 1983 I was offered of buying a lithographic workshop, the Casserini Ltd in Thun
and after careful deliberation my wife and I bought the whole printing house. On January 1
everything was ready. We were ready to start work. Some of the artists from Matthieu Ltd
came to us, amongst others Paul Wunderlich.
And he kept on experimenting. At first with Berlin paper, black transfer paper covered with the
white of egg. Through this technique he was able to put his drawings on paper in the way they
were to be printed. It was possible to make corrections with petrol. Spots that he did not like
were washed away and drawn again. While doing this he discovered new things. It was
important for him that he could work in his studio in Hamburg. I received by post the Berlin
sheets of paper that were ready by post and they were transferred on to grained stones. He
loved this method because he could work on large sheets of paper. Most of these measured
70x100 cm. A sole series was produced on two large sheets. After printing they were connected
with a strip of linen to make one large litho of 100x140 cm. Those Berlin sheets were cut into
pieces, then transferred on to various stones and then printed together to form one sheet to be
printed on a powered machine. No proofs were made of these works in advance but the edition
was printed straight off. All the colours for these sheets were printed from one stone. This is
called elimination printing”. It was very important that the artist was in attendance from the
beginning of printing until the very end. He had to prepare the print afresh for each new
colour. To secure accurate registration the stone remained on the press.
In 1993 a dream came true for Paul Wunderlich. He asked me if I would like to install a small
hand printing press in his summerhouse in the Provence. Of course I had no objections to the
plan and soon everything was ready to start working. And thus we began to print in Provence.
Here too, new trials were carried out again and again. What happens when the paper is first
printed black and then over printed with an opaque ink. We tried and we succeeded. When a
new technique had been explored and several efforts had been successful it did not interest
him any longer and we began to try something new.
In Provence we only made proofs. Then he wrote on a sheet : “ready to print”. The editions
were later printed on a powered press in the lithographic workshop in Ringgenberg near
Interlaken. Meanwhile, we had moved our workshop from Thun to Ringgenberg. In order to
print editions we needed to have the original stones. Soon it was clear that the heavy printing
stones could not so easily be transported from Provence to Switzerland. With four mediumsized stones in the boot of the car, wife, dogs and luggage we could only drive in the daytime,
for at night the headlight could only have shine into the sky. The problem was solved when I
had found a lot of old grained zinc plates. I had a graining machine built and then nothing stood
in the way of our working in France.
One day Paul Wunderlich had the idea of printing a bestiary. Anything that creeps and flies
around the summerhouse, would, when it was found dead, be colored and imitated on printing
plates. We have experimented with I for a long time, but he was not satisfied with the result
until we hit upon the idea of paining the dead objects themselves, putting them into an
especially constructed device and to evacuate the air. The creature was put between two
sheets of latex and tightly fixed. By means of this ink could be transferred to the printing
plates. After the device was opened you could immediately transfer the ink to the printing
plates from the latex foils using a hand press.
Later we noticed that you could also transfer the ink to paper and cloth. We could work and
draw further on the images of the object that had been transferred He always liked to do this.
Until his death in the spring of 2010 we worked like this. Another idea occurred to him and so
together we produced transfer paper from rice starch-paste. Unfortunately he did not live to
draw on that paper.
Paul Wunderlich was an artist and a printer who remained active all his life. He has given
lithography new impetuses over and over again. In his opinion lithography was the most multifaceted printing process. The artist can always intervene as the process evolves and must
therefore always be present. They were 38 wonderful years.
Ernst Hanke, Masterprinter and lithographer. Ringgenberg. Switzerland.
My passion for the early lithos – page 98
For years the book by Simon Moulijn “De eerste jaren der lithografische prentkunst in
Nederland “ was my Bible. Moulijn, a lithographer himself, was the first Dutch for some 130
years to write a book in Dutch relating this subject. Early in the 1980s I bought it from an
antiquarian book dealer for too much money, but I was determined to have it. Apart from the
contents I fell especially for the illustrations at the back: many studies of trees, others with
sheep, simple subjects sometimes drawn on the stone in a clumsy way. In those days I was busy
writing a paper about the origin and the rise of lithography in the Netherlands, a subject that
was frowned upon by my tutor at the Vrije Universiteit.
“Why spend time on such a subject” was his comment, As a matter of fact, no attention
whatsoever was paid to the study of printmaking.
My interest in early Dutch lithography was aroused by accident. After having worked with the
Rijksprentenkabinet as a museum assistant for a few years, I started to study art history. While
looking for a subject for my paper, I consulted Mr J.W.Niemeijer, at that time director of the
institute. I scored a bull’s eye ! Sometime in the past he had started an inventory of early Dutch
lithographs, but halfway the research he had had to stop because of his other activities. Very
generously he handed me his outline notes and I tackled the subject. Soon after this I met the
expert on prints, Theo Laurentius, who reacted in such an enthusiastic way that I became even
more curious.
For days I searched the cabinets with Dutch lithos in the print room that was full of portfolios
called “Studies”. With “Moulijn" under my arm, I visited the archives in Rotterdam, Haarlem,
Dordrecht and Leiden. I could add quite a few names to an old list of stone printers that I had
found in the library of the Rijksmuseum.
Years later, in 1998, Freek Heijbroek, an editor of the magazine for books and prints, “ De
Boekenwereld” asked me if I was willing to turn my paper into an article for a special edition
celebrating the invention of lithography 200 years previously. This was a moment when I
realized that Moulijn was worth a reprint and sometime ago I had promised Mr Laurentius that
I would see this happen. But in my life too other activities drew my attention away from the
projects and a new edition of my “Bible” is still on my list of desiderata.
Drs. Helen Schretlen, art historian.
Author of catalogue “200 years of lithography”, lithos in the collection of the
Rijksprentenkabinet of the National Gallery in Amsterdam
A riddle on stone … page 100
In 1978 I became a co-director of “Steendrukkerij de Jong en Co” in Hilversum. However, there
was no stone to be found anywhere. In those days it was a modern offset printing firm where
quality was extremely important and where designers went in and out as a matter of course
.Every sheet they printed matter was checked. For a perfect piece of printed matter you had to
go to the “Oude Torenweg” in Hilversum where a lithographic printing firm was housed in what
had previously been a weaving-mill.
There was a special classical atmosphere in this old building with its beautiful , wooden parquet
flooring. The grandson of the old Mr Brattinga, Rento Brattinga the third generation in the
printing-firm generation, had started the “Steendrukkerij Amsterdam” with the equipment
from Hilversum. Beautiful lithographic stones and litho-presses still deliver graphic arts there
I wanted to pick up something of the technique and significance of that old period of
lithography. I looked for special publications about the process and found the catalogue “Als de
stenen spreken” in an Amsterdam antiquarian shop in de Spuistraat. It was about an exhibition
in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, in which offset printing firms from home and abroad
displayed their skills. The catalogue was compiled by the designer Jan Bons. Erna van Osselen,
Wim Brusse and Otto Treumann mounted the exposition and Frans Mettes designed the
poster.
A minister, a local mayor, Dr G.W.Ovink and pre-eminent printers shed light on the importance
of printed matter. The choice for either lithography or offset was explained, but I was especially
struck by the selection of beautiful posters, a number of which found their way to top
museums. The advertisements of the firms formed a striking contrast with the posters.
Steendrukkerij de Jong & Co, for example, showed a watercolour of the townhouse of
Middelburg with next to it, an explanation of how printing was done. After all, it was 1947 and
the rebuilding of the Netherlands after World War II. The printers showed their best sides.
A few years after my appointment the Steendrukkerij de Jong & Co moved to an industrial area
of Hilversum and Cees Dam designed a modern building for it. After the move an empty
building was left behind which soon had its windows smashed. Snow and rain got in
everywhere and the parquet wooden floor rose like a hilly countryside in Limburg.
But in the bicycle store there was a stone floor in good condition and turned out to be
composed of lithographic stones. I offered them in a roundabout way to graphic artists and
students of academies and there was a lot of interest in them. At the end of a day’s work I and
the artists went to work to dig out the stones to give them a second life. In this way I played a
part in the survival of this particular printing technique.
A stone is lying here on my desk. On it is a complete alphabet with characteristics of
Baskerville’s type but different from it. The books with type specimens on my shelves belonging
to the lead type era offer no help whatsoever in identifying them. It remains a riddle on a stone
from the short time that I was connected with the Steendrukkerij de Jong & Co.
Titus Yocarini, Director Museum of Communication, The Hague.
Rotterdam-oh, the chromo litho- the chromo litho- oh ,Rotterdam
page 108
In 1952 chromolithography in Rotterdam was the focus of the world press. Everyone could
read in the newspapers that the Rotterdam artist Wally Elenbaas had been awarded the Premio
Colomba for graphics at the 26th Biёnnale in Venice. The Dutch entry for this big international
art exhibition, which is still organized today, consisted of 129 pieces of graphic art by Dutch
graphic artists, among whom Johan Dijkstra, Daniёl den Dikkenboer, Wally Elenbaas, Jan
Wiegers and Benno Wissing.
The fact that the work of Elenbaas was crowned with such a prestigious, international award
gave an enormous stimulus to the Dutch graphic art, and for Elenbaas himself this unexpected
success was a great boost. For a while he was the centre of world news and his work was
immediately purchased by the most important print room: the Albertina in Vienna,, the
Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and Moma in New York. His work was also added to public
collections in the Netherlands, especially the collection of Boijmans van Beuningen that had
already acquired his work much earlier.
That Rotterdam was all of a sudden regarded as the centre of chromolithography was due to
Daniel den Dikkenboer and Wally Elenbaas. They wanted to make chromolithos and tried to tap
the knowledge of the lithographic printing firms in the town. But they searched in vain, partly
because these firms had switched en masse to the much more modern technique of offset
printing. However, when they had a litho press of their own in 1947, they were able to
experiment a lot and with infinite patience came to master the technique of lithography. Thus,
they developed their own methods of working, the result being some idiosyncratic but
convincing colour lithos.
An interest in the production of graphic art in Rotterdam goes back much further than this. Of
great importance was the course in graphic techniques that had been running at the Academy
of Fine Arts on Saturday afternoons since 1917. The initiative for this was taken by the collector
of graphics, Dr. J.C.J. Bierens de Haan, and he also proposed the names of two teachers to run
these classes: Derkzen van Angeren for etching and Simon Moulijn for lithography. Many
artists from Rotterdam were introduced to the principles of graphic techniques. These classes
were the beginning of a tradition in Rotterdam that is being continued in a convincing way .
Dingenus van de Vrie.
|Assistant-curator Prints and Drawings, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen,Rotterdam.
Leen’s stone – page 118
I am privileged, because I had two grandfathers who both printed magazines and newspapers
using letterpress methods. Together with my father I visited Smeets offset printers in Weert in
1954. Mr Smeets sr. explained to me personally the difference between positive and negative
retouching methods and I saw lithographers retouching paintings and photos to make them
more beautiful and printers running off copies of large size art reproductions on multi-colour
presses. I found that amazing.
A few years later I met Mr Mol from the “Eindhovens Dagblad” who explained in detail how
linotype machines worked. I was addicted at once. From that moment composing and printing
would be my world. Nowadays amends to printing are made by applying appropriate standards
for digital data and printed matter. That calls for insight into procedures and engages one in
“reversed “thinking. I learned the latter among other things at the Graphic School in Utrecht,
then one of the training schools for employers.
I was taught there so convincingly about the details of the absolute and relative typographic
units of measure that even now I regularly benefit from them. I was also taught about positive
and negative corrections as far as right-reading and wrong-reading printing methods are
concerned ; the image was wrong-reading on the stone and right-reading on the cylinder
plate. And in the case of offset printing you could expose on either positive or negative film.
Like an experienced chess-player you were consequently forced to think very well in advance:
about left and right , right-reading and wrong-reading, positive and negative, and with
dispositive even becoming negative again. Highly demanding!
Mr Leen van den Burg-who taught me lithography even at that stage no longer believed in the
possibility of making commercial printed matter using stones that were heavy as lead.
However, he managed to motivate us, and especially taught us not to regard the knowledge of
historic techniques as useless and needless ballast, but as a contribution to our ability to think
retrospectively..
“Reversed” thinking was extremely important in my graphic career. Planographic printing,
lithography and letterpress printing were replaced by sheet offset and not much later also by
direct impression methods and thermo printing. Lead type was first replaced by
phototypesetting and not much later that was something of the past as well. There was hardly
any talk of the old lithography. The scanner operators now processed analog images in a digital
way and gave offset printing a sexy look in the eighties. By coincidence I was also responsible
for the implementation of American exposure systems for the production of printing plates
with Philips in Eindhoven. Lithography there was not a thing of the past but provided new
opportunities to make complicated electronic circuits/connections even smaller. My
lithography teacher Leen has unfortunately not lived to see that the old lithography technique
would rise to this high-tech variant.
Henk Gianotten
Henk Gianotten publishes in books and articles about the graphic industry and was awarded
the “Grafische Cultuurprijs” in 2003.
No secrets … page 134
From 1973 till 1978 I studied “Free Graphics” at the Royal Academy for Fine Arts in Antwerp.
Early on I was attracted by the graphic possibilities of lithography. Wim van Remortel, my
teacher of lithography, taught me the basic techniques but I was not satisfied with what I did. I
needed a broader, technical foundation. It was Wim who brought me into contact with Rudolf
Broulim, who was in charge of the graphic printing techniques studio at the Academy of Applied
Arts in Prague. In 1979 I was apprenticed to him for one whole year. It was a “revelation”. His
technical knowledge seemed almost inexhaustible and what was wonderful and what pleased
me a great deal was the fact that Rudolf was prepared to pass on this knowledge. He taught me
every technical detail. He had no secrets - which I could not say of other artists in that time.
Many graphic artists were of the opinion that only technical mastery made graphic work
interesting and they kept their “secrets” to themselves.
I am of the opinion that control of a technique does not automatically guarantee a work of art.
In spite of the fact that I continually strive for technical perfection, technique remains inferior
to the content and the artistic aspects of my work. But technical knowledge is a necessary aid
and as a teacher of lithography ( since1984 I have been teaching lithography at the Royal
Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp) I feel committed to provide young people with a thorough
technical baggage through which they can realize interesting graphics in support of their
artistic talents. Over the years many graphic workshops in schools have been closed because
young people were no longer interested in this sort of education.
I have continue to encourage my students to use these traditional lithographic techniques but
in an innovative and up-to-date manner and in combination with new techniques (computer,
video, audio,…) And it was worth the trouble. The litho-workshop at the Academy of Antwerp is
a much frequented place. Students from Belgium and abroad are learning this old technique
and are producing remarkable works of art by lithography.
Ingid Ledent,
Professor of lithography. Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp.
From pioneers to revolutionaries: the way from lithography to offset
printing – page 142
Over the past decades offset printing has become significant with the proliferation of
information and today it dominates the printing field. Offset printing appears to be a very
modern printing process, not least because it made headway for printing on paper only forty
years ago. And yet offset printing has already been around for more than one hundred years.
The basic principle of offset printing developed directly from the technique of lithography. It
was invented by Alois Senefelder in about 1800, some years after the French Revolution.
Senefelder could not have imagined that his invention would also cause a revolution in the old
respectable printing business, which would continue to influence printing for two centuries.
Lithography and offset printing share the same basic principle: all printing and non-printing
parts are to be found alongside each other on the substrate. They differ only because of their
chemical properties. In contrast to the classic letterpress and methods of intaglio, lithography
and offset printing are planographic processes.
Among the firms that already produce their own offset printing-presses was the firm of Faber &
Schleicher in Offenbach from 1911 when it produced its first rotary offset printing-presses
under the name of Roland. In 1958 the firm called itself Roland Offset printing-press works after
its successful model. In 1979 the merger with MAN follows: manroland. MAN introduced its
first machine for printing paper in 1920 and in 1921 its first rotary press for offset printing.
After World War I, one of the pioneers of offset printing, Caspar Herrmann, also spent time on
letterpress rotary printing with MAN in Augsburg. Only in the fifties did this technique gain
substantial ground. I think it important to point out that offset printing, just like lithography,
was of special importance in its early stages for printing picture : picture postcards and maps,
covers for books and magazines, advertising and much more. More problematic in its initial
stages was the handling of text. Therefore the process could only advance generally, after, in
the age of the “Scientific Wonder”(=Wirtschaftswunder) photographic composition became
available. The result was an enormous boon of offset printing and its ultimate victory the most
important printing process. After having been used for printing in Bild-Zeitung, offset printing
dominates printing on paper. Its efficiency and the quality of its colour provided impressive
proof of this.
By the time of German re-unification almost all the newspaper publishing firms had changed to
production by offset printing. I regard the present hegemony of offset printing as the direct
result of the work of the printing pioneers such as Alois Senefelder or Caspar Herrmann and of
firms like Faber & Schleicher, manroland and their German competitors, who, during the last
two hundred years have contributed to a continuing improvement of the planographic process
– first of lithography and then of offset printing. Although traditional letterpress printing has a
long tradition dating back from the Middle Ages, offset printing, in the meantime, is now able
to boast a rich history. To me it hardly seems inferior in pioneer achievements to the invention
of printing from movable type by Johannes Gutenberg. On the contrary, let us support the goal
of emphasizing the cultural heritage of lithography – and its inventor Alois Senefelder - much
more forcefully than in the past and not least because modern offset printing grew out of the
process of printing on stone.
Thomas Hauser,
Leader marketing and communication manroland
THE CONTINUING IMPORTANCE OF LITHOGRAPHY
page 156
Lithography has been crucial in the book trade and also of course, in the early days of the
process, as a form of art. In our time, when more and more books are read on electronic
appliances, such as e-readers and tablet computers, lithography is still of great importance. To
put it more strongly: without lithography these appliances/machines would not have been
possible.
The stone, however, has been replaced by a silica disc with a diameter of 300 millimeters and a
gauge of only 0.6 millimeters. The wax has been replaced by an advanced chemical mixture that
is sensitive to a very specific sort of light and the tools of the artist have been replaced by a
shaft of manipulated light. What has remained the same are the precision and creativity that
are necessary to make the patterns on the electronic circuits of the appliances – because that is
what we are talking about. The engineers that devise and make these lithographic machines are
true artists in their field, although they will not admit to it.
The electronic circuits or chips that are made-thanks to lithographic machines- have structures
that measure ”anno 2011” about 30 nanometers. By comparison, a hair grows on an average
about 4.5 nanometers per second and in summer grass grows about 33 nanometers per
second. The famous science-fiction writer Arthur C.Clarke once said that every sufficiently
advanced technology appears to us as magic and this is of course the case. The calculationpower and the memory-capacity of computerchips are so large that people a century ago would
probably not have been able to imagine such things, let alone people three or four centuries
ago. The appliances in which they are used would probably have been categorized as “black
magic”.
Neither can we imagine what fantastic electronic appliances and ideas will be developed in the
future. The possibility exists that lithographic techniques will still play a big role in the
manufacture of the components of these appliances over the next decades. It is amazing to
think that a technique developed so long ago still plays such an important role in the modern
world.
Jos Vreeker
ASML Community Relations - Veldhoven
CHROMOLITHOGRAPHY PROJECT
page 42
From 1800 lithography or stone printing made it possible to print a multitude of images on a
large scale : posters, book illustrations, labels, packagings, games, advertising and musical
scores. At first only in black and white but in 1837 a method was discovered to print in colour :
the so-called chromolithography. Chromolithography gave an extra boost to lithography
because the world was waiting for such a possibility. With the application of planographic
methods and the introduction of powered presses the way was prepared for modern industrial
presses including the manufacture of microchips.
The chromo-lithographer draws in reverse on special limestone following a design made earlier
as a model : each colour requires a different stone. The artist makes marks on the stone with
greasy ink (usually in the form of dots) or greasy crayon. The closer the dots or lines, the darker
the colour will become when printed. When printing from successsive stones the differently
coloured dots or other marks fall partly next to or on each other, which allows the
chromolithographic artist to capture the effects of the original design very closely. It required
phenomenal craftsmanship for the chromolithographic artist to translate the colour tints of the
original design into precise dot patterns on each stone. His experienced brain and hand made
this possible. Photography was not yet available and of course there was no digital technology.
The use of mechanical screens today can be seen as a development from the earlier dotting
technique, though using far fewer printings. The Frenchman Godefroy Engelmann was the
inventor of this method, which he called “chromolithographie”. In 1837 he published his Album
chromolithographique ou recueil d’essais du nouveau procédé d’impression lithographique en
couleurs inventé par Engelmann père & fils à Mulhouse. Anyone that wants to know all about
chromolithography should read the bible on this subject, the standard work by Professor
Michael Twyman that will be published next year.
In order to give the visitor to the Dutch Museum of Lithography a better insight into
chromolithography (“chroma” is Greek for colour) the Board of the museum decided to have a
short documentary film made about this subject in 2011. The subject of this film is the making
of a chromo-lithograph after an original gouache design of a poster by the Belgian painter
Fernand Toussaint(1873-1956), which was never taken further at the time.
Chromolithographer Jan Sinkeldam made a keyline drawing of this poster which was then
transferred to nine different stones for printing in as many colours. By taking a series of proofs
of each colour and the effect each has on previous colours the lithographers can see whether
the final result reproduces the original closely. Jan Sinkeldam and a team of printers using the
historic presses of the museum took proofs and did the machining.