Giclee Prints and Giclee Printing

The Origins of Giclee Printing

In 1980, a printmaker from Soho began what can now be considered the genesis of giclee fine art printing. Jon Cone was a gallery owner who worked in several different printmaking fields including silkscreen, intaglio, relief, monoprint and photogravure. Intrigued by the 1984 Apple Macintosh TV commercial, he began learning computer code in an effort to educate himself on the way computer printing systems operated. Cone and his associates would create digital masters by either creating computer software or by placing images directly onto a scanner. Cone would then output the images onto positive or negative film which allowed him to print these images in any form he wanted. In its infancy, he would usually use a Canon copier to output images that were transferred under pressure using acetone onto printmaking paper. This wasn’t quite the giclee printing we know today, but it was the first step in an interesting evolution of giclee prints.

Giclee Printing:

Key Resources:

Inkjet Canvas
Fine Art Paper
Laminates for Canvas Art Prints
Support
Download Custom ICC Profiles How to Print Borderless

Instructional Videos for Giclee Printing:
- How to Use ICC Profiles
- How to Print on Thick Media
- How to Make a Custom Profile

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Giclee Prints

The two successfully put on an art show featuring Nash’s work to raise money to create the software and technology needed to create the prints Nash was looking for. Before long, Nash met UCLA art director John Bilotta who showed him Fuji’s experimental large-format inkjet printers. Unfortunately, these printers had extremely poor quality, as Nash described them as producing “dots as big as your head” – a far cry from the giclee canvas printing we know today. From here, Bilotta gave Nash a brochure for a new product – the IRIS printer.

The Birth of Giclee Printing

Nash met with representatives from the makers of the IRIS printer and ran into a small problem – how to get his images into the IRIS printers for reproduction. It wasn’t hard to solve this problem as the group met with David Coons, a color engineer for Disney. Coons devised a way for the images to be uploaded to the printer, and giclee printing was born. The group successfully put the project together and printed a gallery of Nash’s photographs to be sold at a New York City art gallery. On April 24, 1990, Nash’s printed photographs were sold for $2.17 million dollars – giclee printing had been born.

Learn more about giclee printing, giclee, your photo on canvas and canvas prints by visiting general industry blogs.