Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The Printed Picture
The Printed Picture
The Printed Picture traces the changing technology of picture-making from the Renaissance to the present, focusing on the vital role of images in multiple copies. The book surveys printing techniques before the invention of photography; the photographic processes that began to appear in the early nineteenth century; the marriage of printing and photography; and the rapidly evolving digital inventions of our time. From woodblocks to chromolithographs, from engravings to bar codes, from daguerreotypes to contemporary color photographs, the book succinctly examines the full range of pictorial processes. Exploring how pictures look by describing how they are made, author Richard Benson reaches fascinating and original conclusions about what pictures can mean.Although many of the techniques he discusses have been used to create exceptional works of art, Benson concentrates on the typical, everyday pictures that have played and continue to play such a prominent role in our lives. In conjunction with the publication of the book, an educational installation of this material will be presented in the photography galleries at The Museum of Modern Art, New York in the fall of 2008.
Presented as a series of one-page essays opposite the pictures they examine, the book retains the lively, engaging style of the informal lectures through which Benson developed his ideas over the course of 30 years at Yale University. Rooted in hands-on descriptions of practical techniques, The Printed Picture offers a rich and imaginative interpretation of the enormous cultural and social influence of multiple images.
Richard Benson is a MacArthur Fellow and the former Dean of the Yale School of Art. A photographer, printer and collector, he has devoted a considerable part of his career to research in photomechanical reproduction. As a printer Benson was instrumental in developing the technologies presently used in the industry to reproduce photographs in ink. He has taught many workshops and given many lectures on photography, printing and their associated technologies. He is the co-author of Lay This Laurel (Eakins Press) with Lincoln Kirstein and A Maritime Album (The Mariner's Museum of Newport News, Virginia) with John Szarkowski. His photographic work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, The Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven and many other institutions and private collections.
Product Details
Editorial Reviews
Review
Benson has brought a lifelong love of printing to this stunning book. --Printing World, November 2008
Those without the good fortune to attend [Benson's] classes at Yale, where he was a legendary art teachers for 30 years, can have the next best thing, this soon-to-be-classic book. --Richard B. Woodward, The Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2008
Customer Reviews
The Printed Picture by Richard 
The most resent publication which covers a lot of printing techniques including digital, what's still unusual. Good illustrations. Actually it's excellent guideline!
Just picture it
The Printed Picture may become the standard reference for anyone interested in the history of image creation either as a single copy or in millions. Richard Benson (I'm not related) is to be congratulated in writing about a quite technical subject in a very lucid and accessible way.
The Product Description above will give you an idea about the book's scope. One of the fascinating insights that will intrigue you is that color printing is easier to do than printing in black. This interested me because I buy a lot of black and white photo art books and the problem is that one pass of black printing really can't realistically reproduce all the tonal values of a photo. The solution is to use black and one other ink, usually a grey to capture the lighter areas in a photo. The several hundred illustrations throughout the book show the continuing attempts, over the decades, to reproduce images as faithfully as possible and in multiple copies.
The book is bang up to date with comprehensive sections on color copiers, inkjet printing and scanner technology. The section on Indigo printing might be the way of the future because the technology allows a limited number of copies to be printed and in good quality, too.
I think it is worth mentioning, as another reviewer has, the quality of the writing. It is based on Benson's lectures, over the years, at Yale University and comes across in an easy conversational style that is a joy to read. As well as the writing he also designed the book. It is, as you would expect, beautifully printed on matt art stock with a 250+ screen.
If you work in graphic arts or are just image curious The Printed Picture will explain the background to something that is a big part of everyday life.
***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.
Outstanding!
Just about everything a non-specialist could want to know about the story of printing pictures, beautifully presented by a real expert.
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