An Ode to Printmaking – The Unique Album ‘L’Estampe originale’

‘L’Estampe originale’

This small-scale exhibition highlights one of the great achievements of fin-de-siècle printmaking: the print album L’Estampe originale (1893–1895). Only two other collections in the world hold this exceptional album in its entirety, and many of the prints are rarely exhibited due to their fragility. The presentation features some 35 prints by leading artists including Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Émile Bernard, Camille Pissarro and Paul Gauguin, showcasing the diversity, innovation and individuality of artists working during the heyday of printmaking.

Contemporary

‘L’Estampe originale is an ode to artistic freedom and collaboration,’ says Fleur Roos Rosa de Carvalho, Curator of Works on Paper at the Van Gogh Museum. ‘The artists experimented with colour, technique and style in ways that were far ahead of their time. With this presentation, we show just how innovative and contemporary printmaking could be in the late nineteenth century.’

André Marty

In March 1893, French publisher André Marty released the first instalment of L’Estampe originale, an album of modern prints by avant-garde artists. Over the course of two years, nine albums were published, containing 95 prints by 74 different artists. These were produced according to the principles of estampe originale: the artist was personally involved in every stage of the process, from concept to final print. They were issued in small, numbered editions, in stark contrast to the mass-produced commercial prints of the time.

Printmaking

Colour lithography – still regarded as commercial at the time – was elevated to a modern artistic medium by this generation of artists. By combining avant-garde prints with more traditional graphic work, Marty succeeded in appealing to a broad range of collectors. The album offers a cross-section of the Parisian art world of the 1890s, and is an ode to the artistic possibilities of printmaking.