Moments of Enchantment; 20; Lithography

Moments of Enchantment, brought to you by the New Mexico Office of Cultural Affairs and 770 K-O-B Radio. Lithography, a printmaking technique that barely existed as an art form in this country 20 years ago, is now thriving in the United States, and the center of this revival is New Mexico, more in a moment. Lithography was invented in 1798. It is a process based on a principle that greasy ink and water do not mix. In lithography, an original drawing is transferred to a stone or metal plate. The plate is treated so that only the image part will absorb the ink. The print is taken from the inked plate. By the turn of the century, the process had been used by European artists with great success. But in this country, lithography was used only for commercial purposes. After the depression, WPA artists generated a brief interest in lithography as an art

form, but it remained for the most part a commercial process. There were no master printers, and few 20th-century American artists could produce lithographs. The situation began to change in the 1960s, and by 1970, the Tamarind Institute had moved to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. The Tamarind was started as a workshop in California to train master printers. In Albuquerque, Tamarind continues to train printers and to promote lithography as an artistic medium on a large scale. To learn more about lithography in New Mexico, visit the Fine Arts Museum of the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe. Moments of Enchantment brought to you by the New Mexico Office of Cultural Affairs. For Moments of Enchantment, I'm David Griffin.