What You Should Know About Giclee Art Prints
A giclee (pronounced gee-clay) is a relatively new form of art reproduction. They came into their own in the 1990's with the evolution of the digital computer age.
A giclee reproduction simply must be seen to be fully appreciated. Words alone cannot fully describe how impressive it is and fine art galleries across the country are raving this form of art reproduction.
Giclee prints render deep, saturated colors and have a beautiful quality that retains minute detail, subtle tints and giclee blends. Every brush stroke of the original painting is apparent. While, giclees use inkjet technology, this is far more sophisticated than your desktop printer. The process employs six colors--light cyan, cyan, light magenta, magenta, yellow and black--of lightfast, pigmented inks and finer, more numerous, and replaceable printheads resulting in a wider color gamut, and the ability to use various media to print on.
Giclees are produced from digital scans of existing artwork. This creates a whole new vibrant medium for prints from slides, exceptional quality and detail in both color and black and white enlargements. They can be printed on any number of media, but mainly in canvas and paper. Giclees are superior to traditional lithography in nearly every way. The colors are brighter, last longer, and are so high-resolution that they are virtually 'continuous tone', rather than tiny dots.
Giclees are a win-win for everyone, artist and collector. They make good quality artwork affordable for everyone, and the artist can have multiple affordable giclee images to sell of popular paintings, which in turn escalates the price of the original. They are produced one at a time. Depending on their size, this intricate printing process can take up to an hour or more for each print.
Sizes of a giclee may vary slightly depending on the original painting. Giclees are superior to lithography because their colors are brighter and last longer. These prints make wonderful, thoughtful, distinctive gifts. A giclee print has all the vibrancy and detail of the original but is priced at 10% of the original, for the same size. For the collector, giclee prints are an elegant addition to any works that one may have on paper.
Giclee prints are found in museums, art galleries, and private collections around the world. They were originally developed as a proofing system for lithograph printing process, but it became apparent that the presses were having a hard time delivering the quality and the color of the giclee proofs. They evolved into the darlings of the art world.