Intaglio Prints: Curt Labitzke

The Island Gallery has been pleased to represent printmaker Curt Labitzke for the last several years.  We are showing a new group of his prints here in the Gallery and at our Realogics Sotheby's International Realty Annex (271 Madison Avenue S., Suite 102, Bainbridge Island).  He is also currently participating in a printmaking exhibition with our good neighbor down the street, Roby King Gallery (176 Winslow Way E., Bainbridge Island).  If you're in the area, we encourage you to visit all three locations for in-person viewing.  On top of that Curt will be featured in our upcoming October Gallery Picks Newsletter, and so it is high time to introduce him here.

A Woman, After Picasso.  Curt Labitzke
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Curt Labitzke was born in New York in 1958; his father was an illustrator and his mother was a quilt-maker. He received his Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Notre Dame in 1984 with a concentration in Painting, Printmaking and Drawing.

Upon completion of his degree he joined the Studio Art faculty at the University of Washington, Seattle. Curt is currently the Chair of the Printmaking and Interdisciplinary Visual Arts Programs and regularly teaches in the School of Art’s study abroad program in Rome and Florence, Italy.  He encourages students to cross-pollinate their intellectual interests with creative energy to form a studio practice based in rigor and research. Through seminars and critiques, he engages students in lively, thought-provoking discussions about contemporary art, issues in printmaking, and the art world as a whole. Curt actively supports the sharing of concepts and applications between printmaking and tangent disciplines. He has taught at the University since 1984.

Curt's work is influenced by his extensive travels and reflects a passion for the sensuous quality of Etruscan art, the beauty of the Renaissance, the poetic storytelling of the Greeks and the brut directness of the German Expressionists.  The iconic figures appearing in his intaglio prints, inspired by those times and their people as found in ancient architecture, tombs, temples, and masks, peer from their ambiguous space seeking empathy as they passionately engage the viewer, conjuring up images of worship and celebration. They are constructed of heavily layered and incised archival paper, acrylic paint and a variety of powder pigments vigorously worked to create an active and engaging surface, reminiscent of an ancient fresco or a weathered stone carving.

Blue Delphic Sybil.  Curt Labitzke

A little about intaglio techniques:

Intaglio is one of the four major classes of printmaking techniques, distinguished from the other three methods (relief printing, stenciling, and lithography) by the fact that the ink forming the design is printed only from recessed areas of the plate. The design is cut, scratched, or etched into the printing surface or plate (copper, zinc, aluminum, magnesium, plastics, or even coated paper). The printing ink is rubbed into the incisions or grooves, and the surface is wiped clean. Unlike surface printing, intaglio printing requires considerable pressure.

Virtually all intaglio plates are printed by similar means, using a roller press. A viscous ink is forced into the incisions of the intaglio plate with a roller, and the excess ink is wiped away.  The inked plate is laid face up, a sheet of wet printing paper is laid over it, and a blanket (to ensure even pressure) is draped over them both. Then the upper roller of the press is turned and the bed is drawn through; a pressure of several tons transmitted through the blanket presses the wet paper into the ink-filled crevices of the plate, thus producing the printed image.

Intaglio processes are probably the most versatile of the printmaking methods, as various techniques can produce a wide range of effects.

Intaglio artists over the centuries include Albrecht Dürer, Goya, Picasso, and Rembrandt.

And now, of course, Curt Labitzke (above, at work on a print at the University of Washington).