David T Darling

Darling studied for several years in France at the Academie Libre in Nice, at the Grande Chimère in Paris, and at the Academie Coloraise. His works have been exhibited at the Galerie Nice and the Salon de Beaux Arts in Paris. Then he spent time in the Austrian Tyrol. Upon his return to Rochester, New York, he was invited to contribute to a joint exhibition of eminent watercolorists in company with John Marin and George Ennis at the Memorial Art Gallery. So favorably were his watercolors received tht he was asked to submit his pictures for an exhibition at the Art Center of New York, where he had the distinction of winning the praise of metropolitan critics. Subsequently he moved to 46 Washington Square in Manhattan. He held a one-man show at the Art Center in New York City of a new type of decorative water color which he called "Water-Graph," which he made by a secret stencil process of his own invention. He used seven, eight or more stencils to obtain the well-defined outlines and transparent watercolor applied with a dry brush to produce the subtle gradations of tone. The general effect is of a beautifully handled color woodblock print, but with richer tonal effects and more shading. The process gives the appearance of something which is between a transparent, brushed watercolor and a pastel. He gained a reputation as a painter and as a book illustrator. He painted murals that are in the Pennsylvania state building in Harrisburg. After 1930, he was Assistant Professor of Art at Marshal College, Huntington, West Virginia, where he taught and worked in oils and etching. In 1932 he exhibited the watergraphs at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Decorating with fine art prints — whether they’re figurative prints, abstract prints or another variety — has always been a practical way of bringing a space to life as well as bringing works by an artist you love into your home.

Pursued in the 1960s and ’70s, largely by Pop artists drawn to its associations with mass production, advertising, packaging and seriality, as well as those challenging the primacy of the Abstract Expressionist brushstroke, printmaking was embraced in the 1980s by painters and conceptual artists ranging from David Salle and Elizabeth Murray to Adrian Piper and Sherrie Levine.

Printmaking is the transfer of an image from one surface to another. An artist takes a material like stone, metal, wood or wax, carves, incises, draws or otherwise marks it with an image, inks or paints it and then transfers the image to a piece of paper or other material.

Fine art prints are frequently confused with their more commercial counterparts. After all, our closest connection to the printed image is through mass-produced newspapers, magazines and books, and many people don’t realize that even though prints are editions, they start with an original image created by an artist with the intent of reproducing it in a small batch. Fine art prints are created in strictly limited editions — 20 or 30 or maybe 50 — and are always based on an image created specifically to be made into an edition.

Many people think of revered Dutch artist Rembrandt as a painter but may not know that he was a printmaker as well. His prints have been preserved in time along with the work of other celebrated printmakers such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. These fine art prints are still highly sought after by collectors.

“It’s another tool in the artist’s toolbox, just like painting or sculpture or anything else that an artist uses in the service of mark making or expressing him- or herself,” says International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) vice president Betsy Senior, of New York’s Betsy Senior Fine Art, Inc.

Because artist’s editions tend to be more affordable and available than his or her unique works, they’re more accessible and can be a great opportunity to bring a variety of colors, textures and shapes into a space.

For tight corners, select small fine art prints as opposed to the oversized bold piece you’ll hang as a focal point in the dining area. But be careful not to choose something that is too big for your space. And feel free to lean into it if need be — not every work needs picture-hanging hooks. Leaning a larger fine art print against the wall behind a bookcase can add a stylish installation-type dynamic to your living room. (Read more about how to arrange wall art here.)

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