What is a giclee?

Question

How are they made and why are they so expensive (in relation to copies of the same work)?

Answer 1

An archival high resolution print on watercolor paper is known as a giclée. Windmill Studio is a publisher of Fine Art giclée. Giclée (zhee-clay) is a French term meaning "spray". Giclée prints are the way of the future.

Windmill Studio's professional staff, dedicated graphic artists, provide the high level of quality which giclée prints demand . The resolution of our digital print is 1,440 dots per inch, which is higher than a traditional lithographic print and it has a wider color gamut than seriography. Giclée prints render deep, saturated colors and have a beautiful painterly quality that retains minute detail, subtle tints and blends.

A variety of substrates can be used. These includes archival watercolor papers (such as Hahnemuhle, Arches, Somerset, Laguna), glossy paper and cotton duck canvas. The major advantage of giclée printing is the archival integrity of the process. With the right combination of inks and papers longevity can be up to two hundred years. Giclée prints may be hand embellished by the artist using paint, ink and gold foil stamping for a mixed media effect.

Many contemporary artists such as Graham Nash, David Hockney and Edward Gordon have discovered the advantages of giclée. Giclée prints have an impressive exhibition record. They have been shown in museums and galleries throughout the world. A few are:




The Butler Institute of American Art (Youngstown)

The British Art Museum

The Metropolitan Museum (New York)

The Los Angeles County Museum

Philadelphia Museum of Art

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Laguna

Museum of Contemporary Art Zimmerli Museum - Rutgers University

National Gallery of Women in the Arts (Washington DC)

The New York Public Library Print Collection

The Cocoran Gallery (Washington DC)

The Washington Post Collection

Answer 2

Giclée (IPA: /ʒiˈklɛɪ/ or /dʒiˈklɛɪ/, from French /ʒiˈkle/), commonly pronounced "zhee-clay," is the use of the ink-jet printing process for making fine art large format digital images. The term — from the French verb gicler meaning "to squirt, to spray" — first applied to "Iris prints" created in the early 1990s on the Scitex "Iris Model Four" colour drum piezo-head inkjet proofer, a commercial printer designed to preview what a print will look like before mass production begins.

The term, sometimes anglicized as giclee, is used to describe any high-resolution, large-format ink-jet printer output with fade-resistant dye- or pigment-based inks. It is common for these printers to use between six and twelve colour inks. The use of dye based inks requires special coating to avoid fading.

The word giclée was coined by Jack Duganne to represent any digital print used as fine art. Its intent was to distinguish commercial digital prints from fine art prints. In much the same way that the word serigraph is used to denote a fine art silk screen print, the word giclée is to be used to denote a fine art digital print.

Though originally intended for proofing, many artists and photographers use ink-jet printers as an alternative to lithography, serigraphy or serilith for limited edition original prints or reproductions. The cost of producing limited edition runs is greatly reduced compared to alternative printing methods.

Canon, Eastman Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, ITNH Ixia, Mimaki, Mutoh ColorSpan, Roland DGA, and Seiko Epson Corporation are well-known manufacturers of printers used for giclée prints.