In Kyoto, Japan and the People’s Republic of China
Although Crown Point Press has specialized throughout its history in intaglio printing, we have also offered artists experiences with woodblock, a primary form of relief printing.
Relief prints are printed from the surface of carved wooden blocks, linoleum, etched metal plates, or from any other material that can be cut away to expose a raised area that holds an image. (Even a potato can be used.) Relief printing is the opposite of intaglio.
Most of the relief prints published by Crown Point Press were made by artists who participated in our woodcut programs first in Japan, then in China in the years between 1982 and 1990. We took artists to those countries to work with skilled craftsmen there. When the artist carves the blocks himself or herself, it is a different kind of image–and we have in our inventory some woodcuts made that way. But, in general, when offered the opportunity to have their images carved by professionals, artists have preferred that option to doing the carving themselves. The Asian tradition, also, offered them the opportunity to work with watercolor pigments in woodcut, rather than the oil-based inks generally used by American printers.
