Cliches-Verre: An Experiment by Artists of the Barbizon School, January 8-February 20, 1955
Scope and Contents
From the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, an exhibition of 40 “cliches-verre” (glass prints) by nineteenth century French artists of the Barbizon school. Cliches-verre was a rare printmaking method that resulted from an experiment between Jean Baptiste Camille Corot and photographer Eugène Cuvelier in 1853.
The exhibition records span three folders and include an exhibition description, press release, didactic information, and registration receipts, plus object and installation photographs.
Dates
- Creation: January 8-February 20, 1955
Creator
- Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts (1951-) (Arranger, Organization)
Conditions Governing Access
The price list must be redacted before viewing.
Biographical / Historical
Cliché verre, also known as the glass print technique, is a type of semiphotographic printmaking. An image is created by various means on a transparent surface, such as glass, thin paper or film, and then placed on light sensitive paper in a photographic darkroom, before exposing it to light. This acts as a photographic negative, with the parts of the image allowing light through printing on the paper. Any number of copies of the image can be made, and the technique has the unique advantage in printmaking that the design can be reversed (printed as a mirror image) just by turning the plate over. However, the image loses some sharpness when it is printed with the plain side of the glass next to the paper.
Various methods can be used to make the images such as painting or drawing, but the most common, used by Corot and most of the French Barbizon artists, is inking or painting all over a sheet of glass and then scratching the covering away to leave clear glass where the artist wants black to appear. Almost any opaque material that dries on the glass will do, and varnish, soot from candles and other coverings have been used. Cliché verre is French for glass plate: cliché in French means a printing plate (from which the usual figurative meaning in both languages comes), while verre means glass. Numerous other names have been used for the technique in English and other languages, but none have stuck.
The making of cliché verre prints mostly divides into three phases. Firstly it was used, mainly for landscape images, in France from 1853 to about 1875, with some spread to Germany and other countries. After a hiatus, there was then some use among Modernist artists, mostly in Paris, with Paul Klee in 1902 probably the first. From the 1970s it was again taken up, mostly in America. But the hopes of some pioneers that the process would become taken up for the mass printing of images were never fulfilled, as it turned out to be less predictable and more expensive than the conventional printmaking processes.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clich%C3%A9_verre
Extent
0.1 Linear Feet (The exhibition records span three folders plus photographs.)
Language of Materials
From the Collection: English
Abstract
From the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, an exhibition of 40 “cliches-verre” (glass prints) by nineteenth century French artists of the Barbizon school. The exhibition records span three folders plus photographs.
Separated Materials
Installation photograph prints and negatives and object photograph negatives are housed in the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts Exhibition Photograph collection in box 1.
Subject
- Corot, Jean-Baptiste-Camille, 1796-1875 (Artist, Person)
- Cuvelier, Eugène, 1837-1900 (Artist, Person)
Cultural context
Geographic
Style / Period
Temporal
Topical
Repository Details
Part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Archives Repository
50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr
San Francisco California 94118 USA