Karl Wirsum 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...

James Seymour (1702-1752) A Standing Leap at a Gate Mezzotint with hand colouring Image size 10 x 14 in Framed size 16 1/2 x 20 in James Seymour was an English artist renowned for h...

This artwork titled "Rabbit Series #3" 1980, is an original mezzotint with embossing by noted Hungarian artist Radovan Kragulj, b.1935. It is hand signed, dated, titled and inscribed A.P. (Artist Proof) in pencil by the artist. The sheet size is 25.5 x 19.5 inches, framed size is 26.75 x 20.75 inches. It is custom framed in a silver metal frame, with white backing. It is in excellent condition. About the artist: Radovan Kraguly...

"The Meeting of Her Majesty's Stag Hounds on Ascot Heath" is a large colorful mezzotint engraving of an extensive British hunting scene. It was created by Sir Francis Grant...

Carol Wax describes her circular images as "most often quasi abstract works that refer to ancient islamic designs using the shapes and attributes of animals, in this case the deer. T...

Water Mill (after the drawing by J.M.W. Turner, R.A., 1775-1851). 1885. Mezzotint. Hardie 3.ii. With the publication line. 7 x 10 1/8 (sheet 12 1/4 x 16 5/8...

"Mizuhiki" is an exclusive publication by Stone + Press in an edition of 100. Katsunori Hamanishi was born in 1949 on Hokkaido island - Japan's second largest island. In 1973 he fi...

This artwork titled "Rabbit Series #2" 1980, is an original mezzotint with embossing by noted Hungarian artist Radovan Kragulj, b.1935. It is hand signed, dated, titled and numbered 7/50 in pencil by the artist. The sheet size is 25.5 x 19.5 inches is in excellent condition. About the artist: Radovan Kraguly...

White Head Eagle Mezzotint printed in colors, 2014 Signed lower right (see photo) Titled lower center (see photo) WHITE HEAD EAGLE. The Print Club of Cleveland Publication No. 94, 20...

This artwork titled "Rabbit Series #4" 1980, is an original mezzotint with embossing by noted Hungarian artist Radovan Kragulj, b.1935. It is hand signed, dated, titled and inscribed A.P. (Artist Proof) in pencil by the artist. The sheet size is 25.5 x 19.5 inches, framed size is 26.75 x 20.75 inches. It is custom framed in a silver metal frame, with white backing. It is in excellent condition. About the artist: Radovan Kraguly...

Owl is an etching on paper, realized by the French artist and print-maker master Mario Avati (1921-2009). Hand-signed on the lower right and numbered on the lower left in pencil. Ed...

The etching "The Game of Transformation. Butterflies" is an artist's play with meanings and associations. In this work, modern girls are presented in the form of glamorous fluttering...