Andrew Wyeth
By: [by] Richard Meryman.
Contributors: Meryman, Richard, 1926-
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Published: 1968
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 174
Description: This oversize out-of-print book is a must for Wyeth fans and collectors of fine art publications. The reproductions are the finest I have seen in any Wyeth art books, and perhaps the finest I've come across in any art publication. To quote from the dust jacket, "the paintings to be reproduced (almost the entire body of his major work [in 1968]) were photographed directly from the originals .... Those paintings most difficult to reproduce, about half of them, were then reproduced directly from the photographic negative by screenless collotype - the most accurate of reproduction processes. Each picture was proofed, corrected, and proofed again until it satisfied the artist. So that the pressman might have the near equivalent of the original painting before him these prints were then used as guides for the regular run of the work, which was done only six pictures at a time on an intaglio press over a period of more than eight months. Next to the collotype process itself, which calls for painstaking impressions made from sheets of aluminum, intaglio printing is most suited to the reproduction of fine works of art by reason of its free-flowing ink and consequent depth of impression. The intaglio plates were proofed, corrected from the collotype impressions, and proofed again until they, too, were satisfactory. Only then was the full edition run. The binding of so large a book presented a unique problem requiring the setting up of special machinery and much careful handwork. No comparable effort on so large a scale in the field of fine printing has been made in this country." The results are staggering and are the closest I have ever seen in approaching the originals.