What is a Giclée?

One of the newest and most precise methods of fine art reproduction utilizes the Giclée (zhee-clay) process.

A Giclée is a limited edition fine art print produced with continuous tone ink-jet technology on a variety of media. Giclée (French - to squirt) is an exciting new medium for both artists and photographers because of its unparalleled quality, longevity and the desirability of printing-on-demand. Whether producing an original, enhancing an image or reproducing original art, the Giclée process will render an image of exceptional clarity. Giclée prints will exceed your greatest expectations.

With a palette of over 7 million colours, and a process delivering up to 4 million droplets of ink per second, prints can be reproduced from transparency, or directly from the original without compromising detail and colour vibrancy.

As screens are not used the prints have a finer apparent resolution than lithographs and the colour range is greater than serigraphy. With such a varied palette, the artists' colour approval and input are essential for defining the final configuration and custom settings for the edition.

Producing a Giclée print is a slow and meticulous process that requires the skill of an artist to create museum quality prints. The technology calls for special equipment and techniques to obtain the best colour accuracy, sharpness, continuous colour tone and artistic interpretation available in fine art prints. Because Giclée technology allows the image to be stored on a disk, the artist has the choice of printing a Limited Edition on a "print-on-demand" basis.

Giclée prints are widely accepted at museums and galleries. Many museums in the United States and abroad have either mounted exhibitions of Giclée prints or purchased prints for their permanent collections. These include: the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Guggenheim (New York), The Museum of Fine Art (Boston), The Philadelphia Museum, and The Smithsonian Institute. Additionally, many distinguished photographers and artists, among them: Andrew Wyeth, Jamie Wyeth, Joyce Tennison, Dennis Lewan, Peter Ralston, John Paul Caponigro, Hans Neleman, Anatole Krasnyansky, Raymond Meeks, Dennis Schultz, Peter Nelson and Richard Avedon produce works that are Giclée printed.