> Hello folks,
> A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to see a Paul Strand original
> next to an offset lithography "reproduction" made by Richard Benson
> now from New Haven Conn. The "repro" had a beautiful range of values,
> a clarity and light that was not present in the original.
<<<<<<snip>>>>>
> value from the deep shadows to highlights...so beautiful !! Like a
> Alvin Langdon Coburn photogravure the reproduction can be so skillfully
> and beautifully made that it transends the idea of a reproduction.
> Robert Newcomb
>
I have a Strand photogravure (printed by Jon Goodman), Iris, 1928, an
exceptionally luminescent and beautiful print. I have never seen a silver
print version, but the reproduction in Time In New England cannot stand up
to the gravure **original**.
The offset *reproductions* in Irving Penn's PASSAGE are also remarkable
(quadratones). If I remember correctly, he photographed with offset
litho in mind as the final form (for his editorial and advert work,
anyway), so I wonder if the illustrations in PASSAGES can rightly be
called reproductions, or rather fine new versions of his art work (albeit
editioned). In a related vein, I have a problem with calling a photogravure
a *reproduction*, especially in A. L. Coburn's case, as his negatives were
destined to become gravures and only gravures. The resulting photogravure
is to the negative what a silver print is to one of A. Adams' negatives.
They are the artist's final goal, an accepted *original* work of art.
Printmakers who use a negative, then a positive, to produce their work,
never call the resulting intaglio print a reproduction. Why should
photographers who print in gravure? Gum? Carbon? Bromoil?, etc. etc.