Storytelling giants of print

Umberto Giovannini’s Printmaking Tales is a remarkable combination of art and craft history, with a poetic approach to storytelling. Published by Opificio della Rosa and co-ordinated by Gianna Bentivenga, Maria Pina Bentivenga and Giovannini, the book is printed on Fabriano and Fedrigoni papers. The author is an artist and printmaker who is a professor at Central Saint Martins (CSM) at the University of the Arts, London, and the entire multifaceted project is a collaboration between Opificio della Rosa and the Printmaking Centre and Library at CSM. In his introductory note, Giovannini states that he wishes to conjure up a ‘travel map of printmaking’ for his readers, to excite curiosity in the graphic arts.

Each of the book’s eleven main chapters addresses and explains a different printmaking method, setting out technical details, cultural and economic context alongside imagined scenarios. Giovannini begins each chapter with a vivid anecdote, transporting readers to another time and place. The chapter on drypoint [puntasécca] describes a scene in Rembrandt’s workshop in 1653; the wood engraving [incisione xilografica] chapter drops us into a boat crossing a stormy part of the Mediterranean with artists François-Louis Schmied and Jean Dunand in 1929. The closing chapter, on serigraphy [serigrafìa], pictures Sister Corita Kent listening to Jefferson Airplane while she prepares to make a screenprint using the words of her composer friend John Cage.

The illustrations include many artists’ prints (including Tōshūsai Sharaku, Escher, Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Peter Piech, etc.). Each chapter concludes with a contemporary print that used the technique just discussed. Giovannini’s own Sergio closes the chapter on woodcut [xilografia]; Marina Bindella’s Oltranza II demonstrates wood engraving [incisione xilografica]; Ingrid Ledent’s Secluded is an example of contemporary lithography [litigrafia].

The closing pages are devoted to mixed techniques [tecniche miste], seven works created by Paul Dewis including ‘digital printing with four-colour woodcut’ and other complex hybrids, a contemporary coda to this lyric suite of printmaking themes.