The Artist

Laurent Schkolnyk is one of the very few masters of the mezzotint medium -- anywhere in the world.  Born in Paris in 1953, he has been a long-term staple in the Saper Galleries inventory.

His mezzotints are richly colored and his imagery is serene and beautiful.  They are a "must have" for any serious art collector who strives for quality and value by a true master.

Schkolnyk studied drawing and etching at the Beaux Arts School in Nantes, France, where he became a student of professor Guimezanes in 1971.  He then initiated his study of the mezzotint technique. 

Since the 1980s most of his solo exhibitions have been in France and Japan.  His works appear in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

For more than 20 years Saper Galleries has been proud to make available to the world the mezzotints of Laurent Schkolnyk.  There is no artist who has better command of the arduous medium.
 

The Medium

Mezzotint was invented by Dutch artist Von Siegen at the beginning of the 17th century.  The technique is measured by the artist spending a long period of time "rocking" the copper plate from which the print is "pulled".

The rocker tool is a small curved blade with fine ridges on the edge.  The wooden handled tool is firmly rocked onto the metal plate created a systematic arrangement of impressed lines that intersect and cross in every direction.  The small pits or roughened areas created by the rocker tool are uniform across the entire metal plate.  Some artists spend weeks preparing their mezzotint plates.

If black ink was rolled onto the metal plate at this point, the paper printed from the inked plate would display a velvet-like impression.

The actual image is made by Schkolnyk using a burnisher to press down upon and flatten selected areas of the pitted plate.  Those areas flattened by the burnisher will not hold the ink when transferring the image to the paper.  The burnishing will yield variations of gray, white, or black, and in order to obtain strong white area, a tool called a scraper is used.

Mezzotints were very popular in England during the 18th and 19th century.  During the 20th century the major names in mezzotint engraving were Avati, Hamaguchi, and Schkolnyk.

Laurent Schkolnyk creates his rich colors by producing three completely different plates each one using a primary color: blue, magenta and yellow.  The plates are printed individually with the yellow color always printed first and then the second with magenta or red is printed on the yellow. 

In the same manner the blue is added, thereby creating as much as seven or eight different tints and hues.

The light is brought out of darkness in these exquisite designs created by Laurent Schkolnyk.  The works have a sensual quality and display a unity between realistic themes and fantastic compositions that resides in an intimate atmosphere which discloses the extreme attention and the loving respect of the artist for the birth of the precious image on the plate.

His imagery conveys intense emotion.  Above all, the beauty of his mezzotints are everlasting.  That is the reason that Saper Galleries has long enjoyed sharing the mezzotint engravings of the master, Laurent Schkolnyk.

Perhaps you may enjoy having one in your collection!?