Artist Frédéric Menguy

Title: La Reflet (The reflexion)

Series: Les Angeliques

1975

Original Lithograph

Japanese paper

Signed in wax crayon

No3 of 119

Dimensions:

W: 74 cm

H: 59.5 cm

Artist Frédéric Menguy was a French painter and Lithographer was born in Paris on January 28, 1927 where he lived and worked untill he moved to Villeneuve-lariviere from 1967. He studied art in Paris and painted part time alongside his first jon as accountant, then stockbroker 1949 to 1951. But in 1952 he was awarded a professorship of art at Ecole normale d’enseignement du dessign. Four years later he gave up the professorship to devote himself totally to art. With his first exhibition in 1957. He had reasonable success as an artist, but in 1964 he moved into the medium of lithography.

Lithography:  is a printing process that uses a flat stone or metal plate on which the image areas are worked using a greasy substance so that the ink will adhere to them by, while the non-image areas are made ink-repellent. A printing process based on the fact that grease and water don’t mix. The image is applied to a grained surface (traditionally stone but now usually aluminium) using a greasy medium: such as a special greasy ink – called tusche, crayon, pencils, lacquer, or synthetic materials. Photochemical or transfer processes can also be used. A solution of gum arabic and nitric acid is then applied over the surface, producing water-receptive non-printing areas and grease-receptive image areas. The printing surface is kept wet, so that a roller charged with oil-based ink can be rolled over the surface, and ink will only stick to the grease-receptive image area. Paper is then placed against the surface and the plate is run through a press.

Lithography was invented in the late eighteenth century, initially using Bavarian limestone as the printing surface. Its invention made it possible to print a much wider range of marks and areas of tone than possible with earlier printmaking relief or intanglio methods. It also made colour printing easier: areas of different colours can be applied to separate stones and overprinted onto the same sheet.