Excerpt from Print Quarterly, XXVI, 2009

TAMARIND AND LITHOGRAPHY. This Journal does not usually give notice of newly published manuals for print-makers. There are many of these, published in some quantity to meet the demand (perhaps now diminishing) for textbooks from schools of art. Some are better than others. I remember reading with certain disbelief one such book that had emerged from Central Europe, where the section on woodcut began with advice on how to recognize a suitable tree in a forest and cut it down. A new manual on lithography from the Tamarind Institute of the University of New Mexico is, however, something that does require acknowledgement. It is not just that Tamarind has exercised such a huge influence over the history of lithography; it is also because this publication is more than a cookbook of recipes.

The first Tamarind Book of Lithgoraphy: Art and Techniques was written by the printer Garo Antreasian and the historian Clinton Adams and published in 1971. It has long been out of print, and its replacement (for it is not a new edition), is titled Tamarind: Techniques for Fine Art Lithography (New York, Abrams, 2009, $85). Unlike many second versions it is shorter than its predecessor (302 pp. against 463 pp., and eleven chapters as against sixteen). It is entirely illustrated in colour (251 ills.), whereas the first was mostly in black and white. The new author is Marjorie Devon, the current Director of the Institute, with the assistance of two master printers, Bill Lagattuta and Rodney Hamon. Devon has completely rethought the book, and has done a very good job. Very useful passages on paper and inks survive, while numerous techniques that have now been abandoned have been omitted. So has most of the history that Clinton Adams supplied, and the illustrations of earlier lithographs.

Tamarind is itself part of history now, and many recent books have documented its role thoroughly. The future of lithography, which seemed in doubt when June Wayne established the project with a grant from the Ford Foundation in 1959 now appears secure, at least for the present; we are told that more than 100 master printers have graduated from the Tamarind school. Such success must have seemed inconceivable in 1959. Who would have guessed then that in 2009 it was the future of Ford that would be in doubt?

Clinton Adams died a few years ago and is much missed. I am sure that he would have cast a wry historian's eye over the changes between these two editions. Some things have just plain changed. The first edition told us that limestone from the Solenhofen quarries in Bavaria was no longer obtainable except second-hand. Now it is freely available again, newly quarried - albeit at a high price - and there are some excellent photographs to show us this. Zinc lithography has become obsolete, completely replaced by aluminum. A more subtle change has taken place with chine collé. In the first edition, this was to be affixed to the backing sheet in the course of printing the edition. Now the instructions are to fix the sheet of chine onto the support sheet before printing takes place.

The biggest changes, and the ones that most interested me, are in the first two chapters. In 1959 we began in the middle of things with 'Drawing a Lithograph' and 'Processing the Stone'. In 2009 we are offered instead, 'The Lithography Workshop' and 'Health and Safety'. The latter section (pp.19-80, nearly a fifth of the whole book) speaks for itself and for our times. The first chapter is subdivided. After some general statements about the physical aspects of a workshop, we move onto 'Workshop Models', 'Legal Structures', 'Business Models', 'Public Relations', 'Marketing' and 'Fund-raising'. In 1959 the nearest parallel to these is in chapter three, on 'The Artist and the Printer', where the closest we get to business advice is a column on 'The Economics of Collaboration'. In this we are told that 'it is imperative that the printer's schedule of charges be established at a level high enough to take account of difficult projects and unforeseen events'. The unspoken assumption is that the only relationship possible is that the printer is the employee of someone else.

Compare that with 2009, where we are offered five types of legal structures for a workshop and two models of printing. One is 'Custom or Contract Printing' and is the same as in 1959. The other is where the printer is involved in publishing, and four different possible financial relationships between the printer/publisher and the artist are offered. The section on 'Marketing ' goes into this further, and the paragraphs on 'Pricing' offer some fascinating insights into a matter rarely discussed in public. We are offered a rule of thumb: 'Usually, a price equal to approximately ten times the production cost provides sufficient profit for the artist, the studio, and the sales representative'.

It may seem ignoble to end on this note, but historians, of the print of earlier centuries (I speak for myself) would love to get information of this kind, and historians of the modern print are often curiously reluctant to enquire into these matters. Prints, after all, are not just works of art, sometimes even great works of art; they are also objects of commerce.

ANTONY GRIFFITHS