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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;TT Antique, post: 9737407, member: 2653&quot;]<p style="text-align: left">Dear All,</p> <p style="text-align: left"><br /></p> <p style="text-align: left">Here is a nice vintage offset lithograph reproduction print I picked today for my own collection. It is based on a colored engraving from the eighteenth century. In my humble opinion it is one example of the early golden years of offset lithography, before the artistic aspect of the process was lost. I used to wonder how some early offset lithos have quite an appealing , crisp and vibrant look as some original lithographs. Sometime back someone in the know explained to me that in the early years of the widespread adoption of offset lithos (basically after WW2 in the late 40s, 50s and early 60s, though offset lithos were discovered quite earlier), craftsmen(artists)&nbsp; were still involved in the process and it was a joint collaboration of photographers and craftsmen. Obviously it was quite a slow and cumbersome process.The craftsmen used to work upon or highlight various areas on the image in the intermediate plate inch by inch sometimes taking them weeks or more than a month to finish. But the resulting images of the offset litho prints were quite nice and appealing and one actually can not find the dot patterns easily. But overtime this slow process was deemed to be not economical and hence the process was streamlined omitting the role of the craftsmen and relying on purely photomechanical process. Hence between the era of original lithography ( stone lithos etc until WW2) and the purely photomechanical offset lithos that most of us grew up with (those mundane , non crisp prints where you can see the dot patterns with your naked eye),it seems there was a brief transitional vintage period where offset lithos were produced with artistic appeal. Alas that now is a lost art in offset lithography. My hunch is that the golden era of offset lithos produced great prints&nbsp; because printing houses did not want to let go of their craftsmen immediately and these craftsmen made sure by their appealing works that they were still an artistic force to reckon with in the face of the intimidating machine age : ).</p> <p style="text-align: left"><br /></p> <p style="text-align: left">Anyway I hope some of you also appreciate like me these particular kinds of vintage offset litho&nbsp; prints from a bygone era.</p> <p style="text-align: left"><br /></p> <p style="text-align: left">TTA</p> <p style="text-align: left"><br /></p> <p style="text-align: left">[ATTACH=full]475393[/ATTACH]</p> <p style="text-align: left"><br /></p><p>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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