Monday 28 March 2016

The Art of the Transfer Lithograph

Johann Alois Senefelder (1771 – 1834) invented lithography in 1796 (his description of how he invented the technique is HERE).  In this printing technique a polished stone is used as the basis for creating an image. The artist applies a water repelling medium on the stone where they want the ink to be in the final image. 

An associated technique is Transfer Lithography. In this technique the artist uses a specially treated paper to create the original image, which is then transferred onto the surface of a prepared lithographic stone and printing begins. 

Joseph Pennell (1857-1926) was one of the most prolific producers of lithographs using the transfer lithograph process (see HERE). Below is an image from Pennell's book of images of the Panama Canal made in 1912 from HERE.