G.H. Rothe Prints and Multiples

Leonard Merchant's mezzotint, "Snail in Cup" is inscribed for fellow artist, Fritz Eichenberg. While a student at the Central School for Arts and Crafts in London, a young Leonard Marchant found an engraving rocker in a cupboard and proceeded to turn himself into a master of the painstaking art of mezzotinting. Marchant, who has died in Shrewsbury aged 70, grew up in Simonstown, the Royal Navy's enclave in South Africa. Though his first job was as a parliamentary messenger, he taught himself to paint and, aged 19, was given a one-man show in Cape Town. Fired by this success, he left for England to study painting and, he claimed, to escape the stifling home atmosphere created by his Catholic mother and aunts. (His father was killed in the second world war.) Without contacts in London, he phoned Jacob Epstein, whose recommendation resulted in a grant to study briefly at the Central School. It was later, when studying full-time at the Central, that he saw the mezzotints of the Japanese master, Yozo Hamaguchi, in a London gallery. He was hooked. Creating a mezzotint is tedious in the extreme. The copper plate must first be prepared with a "rocker" which roughens the surface. A plate may be "rocked" 30 or 40 times. The rough texture is then reduced with a burnisher and a scraper, allowing the print a range of tones from velvety black through the greys to white. Marchant's plates could be months in the making. But the technical demands were the least of his worries. In its 18th- and 19th-century heyday, mezzotint was solely a reproductive medium, for copying masters such as Reynolds and Turner. The development of photography rendered it unfashionable, and by the 1960s the technique, known as la manière anglaise, was a bygone medium. Marchant, by now a teacher in printmaking at the Central, began to create original mezzotints with a colleague, Radavan Kraguly. A perfectionist, he seemed to revel in the straitjacket procedure. Perhaps it was the metaphor of bringing darkness out of light that appealed to this straight-talking, sometimes sombre, man, who would suddenly relax and light up like a gleaming hue on one of his prints. His work was of squares and triangles with the occasional cat, black and ominous, and carefully arranged still lifes, featuring plants, a seed pod, a pot he might have bought at auction to celebrate the sale of a print. There were one-man shows, notably at the Bankside Gallery. He sold well at the Royal Academy summer exhibition, was a Florence Biennale prizewinner, spent a fellowship year at the British School in Rome, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. But making mezzotints was not a paying job. Marchant and his South African wife...

A play on words provides the title for this image -- a circle created out of the deconstructed parts of Singer IV This image is #37 from an edition of only 50, referenced as Firos 78...

In "Still Night", Frederick Mershimer depicts a row of brownstone houses on Seventh Avenue near Flatbush Avenue between Park and Stirling Places. Mershimer remembers that as he was ...

Rio Osmarin shows boats on the canal Rio de S. Provolo o de l'Osmarin in Venice) It was created in 2006 and this impression is #31 of 75 It is signed, titled, numbered and dated by...

Color lithograph with collage, Edition 30 Hung Liu grew up in China and came of age during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. She spent four years in the countryside as a laborer, s...

Artist: Salvador Dali Title: James the Greater (Lancelot of the Lake) Portfolio: 1972 The Twelve Apostles (Knights of the Round Table) Medium: Lithograph Year: 1972 Edition: 45/350 F...

Daniel Arsham Rose Quartz Eroded Bust of Rome, Divinisée, 2020 Signed and Numbered (84/150) poster (offset print), published 2021 Daniel Arsham’s Rose Quartz Eroded Bust of Rome, D...

This Holiday wreath adorns the door of a Brooklyn Mansion Frederick Mershimer (American, b. 1958) Moody, mysterious, majestic – these are some of the ways to describe the mezzotint...

Drift is a hand-pulled mezzotint in an edition of 10. This is #3/10. Location is Jarnigan ST in Starksville, Mississippi Jacob Crook was born in St. Loui...

One of the many Iconic images by Shepard Fairey from the 2008 Campaign trail. This is a print that will stand the test of time in both artist and political forums. Edition Detail...

Original Bing Crosby Paramount Films vintage personality poster. Archival linen-backed and ready to frame. There is some foxing along the original fold marks; otherwise, this poster ...

This is an artist's proof (xv/xv) of an early telephone that is signed and numbered by the artist in pencil Schkolnyk was born in Paris, France in 195...

Mario AVATI Still Life with Eggs Original black manner etching Handsigned in pencil Numbered / 150 copies On vellum 38 x 48 cm (c. 15 x 19 in) Au...

Hino creates a still life of a lotus from an edition of 65. A prominent figure in Buddhist and Egyptian culture, and native flower for both India and Vietnam, the lotus holds enormous symbolic weight. It spans various thousand-year-old Eastern cultures and yet, is still considered one of the most sacred flowers today. So what is it about this mysterious blossom that people find so enrapturing? Its colorful bloom is an obvious suspect, but the lotus also has a life cycle unlike any other. With its roots based in mud, it submerges every night into murky river water, and—undeterred by its dirty environment—it miraculously re-blooms the next morning without residue on its petals. Although cultures have their own interpretations of this daily process, there is a general consensus among ancient texts...

Original Lithograph by Jean-Gabriel Domergue Title: Almost Dressed Signed in the plate Dimensions: 40 x 31 cm 1956 Edition of 197 This artwork is part of the famous portfolio "La Par...