Faust Gallery

What Is an Intaglio Etching?

An intaglio print is made from a metal plate where the image is cut into the surface. The word comes from the Italian intagliare, “to incise.” Ink sits in the cut lines, not on the surface, and a heavy press forces damp paper down into those lines to lift the ink out. Etching is the intaglio method that uses acid to do the cutting.

Few families are as closely tied to the process as the Lasanskys. Mauricio Lasansky founded the University of Iowa’s printmaking program in 1945 and spent his career pushing intaglio to a new scale, sometimes building a single color image from dozens of plates. Beginning in the early 1970s, his son Tomas Lasansky served as his printing assistant, learning hard- and soft-ground etching, engraving, aquatint, scraping, and burnishing at his father’s press. Mauricio’s grandson Diego Lasansky carries the same methods into a third generation, etching and engraving on copper in Iowa City—a single print of his can take months at the plate.

How an Etching Is Made

• 01 The plate. The artist starts with a polished metal plate, usually copper.
• 02 The ground. For etching, the plate is coated with an acid-resistant ground. A hard ground allows for crisp, controlled lines; a soft ground stays tacky and can capture drawn marks as well as the textures of materials pressed into it.
• 03 The drawing. Using an etching needle, the artist draws through the ground, exposing bare metal wherever a line is to be etched.
• 04 The bite. The plate goes into an acid bath. The acid bites into the exposed metal; longer bites generally produce deeper marks capable of holding more ink and printing more strongly.
• 05 Tone. Tone can be created in many ways: through hatching, cross-hatching, stippling, and the accumulation of lines and marks; through textures transferred with soft ground; or through aquatint, in which fine resin dust is fused to the plate and bitten to create finely textured areas that hold ink. During printing, the artist can also selectively leave a film of ink on the plate’s surface, known as plate tone. Used alone or in combination, these methods can produce everything from subtle grays and atmospheric passages to dense blacks.
• 06 Direct work. In addition to etching, images can also be worked directly into the plate using several techniques. Engraving uses a sharpened tool called a burin to cut controlled lines and grooves into the metal. Drypoint uses a pointed needle to scratch directly into the plate, raising a burr along the edge of the mark that holds ink and produces a characteristically soft, rich line. Scraping and burnishing remove or flatten existing marks and textures, allowing the artist to lighten, reshape, or erase areas of the image.
• 07 Inking and wiping. Ink is worked into the recessed lines and textures of the plate, then the surface is carefully wiped with cloth and, often, the palm of the hand, leaving ink in the recessed marks while allowing the printer to control how much tone to leave on the surface of the plate.
• 08 The press. Dampened paper is laid over the plate and run through an etching press under heavy pressure. The paper is forced into the recessed marks, transferring the ink and creating the characteristic embossed plate mark of an intaglio print.
• 09 Proofs and editions. Every impression is inked and wiped by hand, one at a time. While developing an image, the artist prints proofs to see what is on the plate and to guide further changes. As the plate changes, these impressions document its successive working states. Once the image is complete to the artist’s satisfaction, an Artist’s Proof (A/P) may be made as a perfected impression of the finished plate. A numbered edition can then be printed, with each impression made to closely match the approved proof.

This is the historical tradition of editioned printmaking, but it is not the only approach. Some contemporary printmakers deliberately allow the plate, inking, wiping, or other elements to evolve throughout the printing process, producing a series of working states or unique impressions rather than a uniform edition.

By convention, the artist signs the finished work in the margin beneath the image and indicates its status—such as its number within an edition, Artist’s Proof (A/P), or state proof—as appropriate.

Color intaglio multiplies the work. Each color can require its own plate, and every plate must line up exactly on the same sheet.

An intaglio print is not a reproduction. It is an original work of art, printed by hand from a plate the artist made—a process the Lasansky family has practiced in Iowa City for three generations.