Mikio Watanabe Art

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...

Alberto"El Cuervo" Bustillos (Mexico, 1950) 'Descubrir tus paisajes', 2007 etching, aquatint on paper Deponte 300 g. 12.3 x 10.3 in. (31 x 26 cm.) ID: CUR-108 Unframed

Stone and Press Gallery is excited to offer several works in celebration of the LGBTQ community. In this mezzotint, the sensual profile of a young nude woman is seen sleeping with ...

Portfolio of 10 Original Signed Engravings by Salvador Dali Title: Decameron Signed in Pencil by Salvador Dali Dimensions: 45 x 32 cm Edition EA 1/5 1972 References : Field 72-8 (p. ...

Drypoint printed in dark brown on heavy cream wove paper with wide margins. This is the third state (of four) from a small edition of only several. Signed and inscribed "II Zustand" ...

A fine impression of this very popular image with full margins (smaller on top and bottom) published by Associated American Artists.

A fine impression with good margins published by Associated American Artists.

Colorful figurative drypoint print by Polish artist Czeslaw Tumielewicz. Artwork depicts two people kissingDon Kichote on a horse, attacking a surreal windmill. They are shown in rat...

Original, Linen backed New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival poster from 1983. A fun image with a crawfish holding an umbrella with streamers. 1983 JAZZ & HERITAGE FESTIVAL PRO-MO ...

MARTA WAKUŁA-MAC: Master of Arts in Fine Art Education- Diploma in Fine Art Printmaking at the Institute of Art, Pedagogical University, Krakow, 2003. Member of Graphic Studio Dubl...

Artist: Millard Owen Sheets, American (1907 - 1989) Title: Summer Gold Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 250, 5 HC Image S...

Erotic scene is an original Héliogravure artwork on ivory-colored paper, realized by Micheal Von Zichy in 1911. Printed in only 300 copies, Leipzig; Privatdruck, from the Catalogue ...