From the podcast – Platemark: prints and the printmaking ecosystem
In s3e32 of Platemark, a podcast about prints and the printmaking ecosystem, host Ann Shafer speaks with Ad Stijnman, an independent scholar of historical printmaking processes, specializing in manual intaglio printmaking techniques. He is also a professional printmaker.
Ad is the go-to guy on all sorts of things. When he speaks, we listen. Beaming in from Amsterdam, our conversation covers all sorts of topics from paper sizing and watermarks to acids and chine collé. We talk about teaching people to look, really look, and be able to describe what they are seeing. We talk about the troubling lack of an internationally shared vocabulary—what color is fawn or taupe, anyway? We talk about why neither of us wears gloves to handles works on paper except in very special circumstances. And, we talk about producing an invaluable and exhaustive (if not complete) list of terms and abbreviations found in print addresses.
Ad has lectured and published widely on the materials and techniques of intaglio processes going back to their beginnings. His seminal, award-winning book Engraving and Etching 1400–2000: A History of the Development of Manual Intaglio Printmaking Processes (2012) is on any serious scholar’s bookshelf. Together with Elizabeth Savage, he co-edited the award-winning book Printing Colour 1400–1700: History, Techniques, Functions and Receptions (2015). His curatorial activities include exhibitions on medieval prints, early modern colour prints and Rembrandt’s etchings on Japanese paper.