Situated on the harbour of Tórshavn, our studio houses four professional printers. We facilitate visiting artists, who for the duration of their stay use the studio as their atalier, working on our lithographic stones as the blank canvas.
Every process that results in a lithographic print, etching, wood/linocut, art book or otherwise, begins and concludes within the walls of Steinprent, and always at the hand of the artist in question. We prioritize matters of quality and work with the promotion of professional art, with respect for the artist and their work in mind.
Among the many artists that we have worked with over the years, most are Scandinavian. They appreciate the unique working environment and responsive cultural audience that exists on the Faroe Islands, thus often choosing to return.
Relative to the very small population, there is an unusual concentration of artistic capability and interest, and as such, the local artists make up a large and important part of our portfolio
The Lithographic Process
The principal from which we work, stems from the invention of German author and actor Alois Senefelder. Debuting as a playwright in the year 1796, he was searching for a publisher willing to print his plays. Since there were no takers, he decided to find his own method of distributing his texts. He set up workshop and began experimenting on a whole new way of printing. He did not however succeed in whatever breakthrough he was trying to achieve, and so in the face of defeat was forced to close down. Shortly before leaving his workshop, he coincidentally wrote a note on a limestone stemming from a nearby quarry in Solnhofen, Germany. Trying to wash away this note, he discovered that a shade of it remained in the surface, which was impossible to wipe off. The shade repelled the water, and when he applied a colour the note reappeared as it was first written. You can imagine the maelstrom of thoughts going through his head, but he probably probably didn’t realize at the time, that he was about to lay the foundation of modern printmaking.
The central chemical principle of lithography is the immiscibility of oil and water. A drawing is made on the grinded surface of a lithographic limestone. The drawing/painting medium is a greasy black substance which solidifies in the top layer of the stone when applied. The drawing is then coated with a layer of gum-arabic, which is only dissolvable by water, and the black colour is wiped off with lamp oil. The gum arabic is removed with a wet sponge, and the drawing on the stone containing fat will repel the water. Because the stone is wet only on the blank areas, and dry on the drawn areas, only the drawing will absorb the pigment. A print can then be made from the stone of the first colour the artist has decided upon. The next colour will require a newly grinded stone and another drawing to be printed on the same paper. This procedure is in part what makes this process long and intricate.
We strive to only use the best materials available to us. The paper we print on is handmade from cotton in France by Arches Rives. The structure of the paper, its weight and durability and the amount of colour it can be saturated with are among the qualities that make it unequaled for our purposes. The pigments we use are completely lightfast and also amongst the best you can buy.
Though we specialize in and keep to a very traditional craft, we continually develope our techniques. The greatest catalyst in this instance are the artists, who more often than not want, to push the boundaries. Where the established rules for a long time have dictated what works and what is possible, the artist no longer asks whether, but rather by which means, something can be done. It is then also up to us, who must realize the experiment, to rethink the approach, so as to achieve the desired result.
Lithographic printing as a technique has developed much since its invention, but the principals on which we work are the exact same as originally su bmitted. The lithographic limestone posesses unique qualities making it a good medium for printmaking by professional artists. Establishing a fully fledged lithographic workshop requires a great deal of time and resources, and thus we serve the needs of artists who wish to work with the medium without having to acquire these resources themselves.
