About Giclee

The past two weeks I've been working with Jeff Frey and CPL Imaging to produce scans of a few select pieces, including this one titled Blue Van Gogh, for the purpose of making giclee reproductions available to a wider audience.

I became aware of how widespread giclée (zhee-clay) use has become while gallery hopping in Albuquerque and Sedona last spring. If you’re not familiar with the term or the process, here’s a little info for you from www.gicleeprint.net

The Definition: Giclee (zhee-klay) - The French word "giclée" is a feminine noun that means a spray or a spurt of liquid. The word may have been derived from the French verb "gicler" meaning "to squirt".

The Term: The term "giclee print" connotes an elevation in printmaking technology. Images are generated from high resolution digital scans and printed with archival quality inks onto various substrates including canvas, fine art, and photo-base paper. The giclee printing process provides better color accuracy than other means of reproduction.

The Advantages: Giclee prints are advantageous to artists who do not find it feasible to mass produce their work, but want to reproduce their art as needed, or on-demand. Once an image is digitally archived, additional reproductions can be made with minimal effort and reasonable cost. The prohibitive up-front cost of mass production for an edition is eliminated. Archived files will not deteriorate in quality as negatives and film inherently do. Another tremendous advantage of giclee printing is that digital images can be reproduced to almost any size and onto various media, giving the artist the ability to customize prints for a specific client.

The Quality: The quality of the giclee print rivals traditional silver-halide and gelatin printing processes and is commonly found in museums, art galleries, and photographic galleries.

Another reason I like giclée prints is that zhee-clay rhymes with Paul Klee, who was one of my favorite artists when I was in art school. I appreciated his originality, range, use of color and his uncannily uncategorical style.

EDNOTE: The limited edition Blue Van Gogh giclee prints have been reproduced at 12.5" x 9.5", a 1 to 1 ratio to the original, on Hahnemuhle Photo Satin paper using Epson UltraChrome K3 ink. Click to enlarge.