About Lithography

What's Lithography?

• Lithography (“litho” for short) is a unique way of making prints. Instead of carving grooves into a plate, lithography uses a flat stone or metal plate matrix. It’s a planographic printing technique because there are no incised or carved out areas—the ink sits on the surface!

• It works by using the fact that oil and water don't mix. The artist draws on a limestone or metal plate with greasy crayons or ink. The greasy parts will attract ink, while the parts wet with water will repel it. 

• After drawing, ink is applied to the stone, sticking only to the greasy drawing. The wet areas keep the ink away. Paper is laid on the matrix and it’s all run through the press, transferring the inked image from the matrix to the paper. The drawing on the matrix is reversed, like in a mirror, when printed. 

• Lithography offers a versatile and expressive approach, enabling artists to convey their vision directly onto the printing surface through drawing or painting.

A Brief History

• In the late 18th century, Alois Senefelder invented lithography in Germany. The name lithography comes from the Greek terms lithos (stone) and graph (write/draw). Many artists embraced the process to produce lithographic fine art prints, as it was relatively inexpensive and allowed artists to use their drawing and painting skills in printmaking. 

• By the mid-19th century, lithography became commonly used to print graphical images in newspapers and books. While the text on the page may have been arranged with moveable type in a letterpress, printing an image would require a dedicated block to be created for each graphic. However, with lithography, an artist could  draw an image by hand directly on a stone to be printed over and over again.

• Today, one of the most common ways to print books, magazines, or newspapers is an extension of the lithographic technique called offset lithography.

Examples of lithograph prints: 

• 1. Dramas of the Sea: A Descent into the Maelstrom, by Paul Gauguin (1889)

  2. Cover for L'Estampe originale, Album I, by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec & printed by Edward Ancourt (1893)

  3. Geschrei (The Scream), by Edvard Munch (1895)

  4. Self-Portrait, by Paul Cézanne (1899)

  5. Le Taureau (The Bull), by Pablo Picasso (1945)

  6. Relativity, by M.C. Escher (1953)

  7. Four Panels from Untitled 1972, by Jasper Johns (1974)

  8. Portrait of Mother III, by David Hockney (1985)

Adaptations for the Classroom

• A traditional lithography matrix would most often be made from a flat slab of heavy limestone. However, metal plates can also be used. Inspired by artist Émilie Aizier's kitchen litho technique, we're making an aluminum plate by wrapping aluminum foil around a piece of recycled plastic.

• To establish an image on an aluminum plate for the lithography process, we use gum arabic and phosphoric acid. To simplify the required materials, we can dip our aluminum foil matrix in a bath of cola—which conveniently already contains both gum arabic and phosphoric acid.

Teacher Resources

Links to Check Out

• [article] Kitchen Litho ?, by Émilie Aizier

• [video] Lithographie maison - Kitchen Lithographie - Lithography, by Émilie Aizier

• [article] Lithograph [process], by The Metropolitan Museum of Art

• [video] Kitchen Litho by Valerie Syposz, via Print Center New York