Philip Van Keuren
Fountain
2016

About the Item

This image is printed in black ink on Hahnemühle Copperplate paper in an edition of 12 from a copper photogravure plate made from the artist's original 35mm camera negative. The scene was captured in New York City's Central Park. The artist's signature, title, date and edition number are in pencil on the front, lower margin. This print is included in Volume 1 of "Toward What Sun?", the artist's ongoing series of photogravure prints. It is available singly or as part of the ten prints that comprise Vol.I. Philip Van Keuren has been making photographs for many years. His images are prompted by everyday observations that reveal the world as sublimely beautiful while simultaneously unknowable. Photogravure is an intaglio printmaking process wherein a light-sensitive gelatin tissue which upon which a film positive has been exposed with high-intensity UV light is adhered to a copper plate and then etched. The result is a high quality intaglio print that can reproduce the detail and continuous tones of a photograph. Photogravure was developed in the 1870’s and became one of the first widely used techniques for reproducing photographic imagery. Photogravure is unique among photo-printmaking techniques in that it can be described as truly photographic; i.e. the photographic image is realized in continuous tones rather than broken up, via a half-tone screen, into dots of white or black that blend visually to simulate a photographic appearance, as in photo-lithography, photo-etching and photo-silkscreen. The photogravure print is printed on paper from the etched copper plate that has been inked and wiped as a regular intaglio plate. Photographers of the Photo-Secession and Pictorialist movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries prized photogravure for its ability to render a wide tonal range, soft tones and details. The technique later fell into disuse as most photographers utilized the convenient and high quality silver gelatin papers to print their images. Interestingly, the rise of digital photography has sparked a renewed interest in some of the early techniques of photography, and photogravure has been enjoying something of a renaissance in the past 20 years or so.

Creator:

Philip Van Keuren (1948, American)

Creation Year:

2016

Dimensions:

Height: 14 in (35.56 cm)Width: 18 in (45.72 cm)

More Editions & Sizes:

edition of 12Price: $900

Medium:

Photogravure

Movement & Style:

Contemporary