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Imagine a contemporary print publisher convincing Mel Bochner, Ed Ruscha, Kiki Smith and Chuck Close to all make a work with them.  Or imagine a few decades ago those artists being Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtentstein and Keith Haring.  I’m just dropping names here.  But then imagine that within two months, not only this fictitious publisher convinced these artists, they actually had the print published, and that those prints became some of the best known by that given artist.  You’d think that this kind of confluence of talent, luck and success just never occurs in the real world.

Yet in just two years, André Marty managed to publish 100 prints of world class caliber in his now famed publication, named L’Estampe Originale (The Original Print).  In ten albums, Marty put together under one proverbial roof, a great many of the most important printmakers of his time.  It helped that he was located in Paris, then the center of the artistic universe.  It should be said that L’Estampe Originale is dominated by French artists.  Aside from a few English works, as well as the odd American and Belgian, it is a Franco-French endeavor.  This should not diminish his accomplishment, however.  In the first album, in which Marty clearly decided to come out with a bang, he published amazing and today famous prints by Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Heni-Gabriel Ibels, Paul-Elie Ranson, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Edouard Vuillard!  How’s that for start?

In 1970 and then again in the early 1990s, exhibitions and two catalogues were devoted to the publication.  They were held at the now defunct Museum of Graphic Art in New York, and then in 1991 and 1992 at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum (New Brunswick, NJ) and the Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam).

It used to be that any collector worth her or his salt was the proud owner of a reference library.  And anyone interested in modern prints would have the Stein & Karshan on their shelf (as in, Donna M. Stein & Donald H. Karshan, authors of the first catalogue).  And if you didn’t get that one, you surely had bought a copy of the catalogue authored by Patricia Eckert Boyer and Phillip Dennis Cate.  No more!  Most print collectors today don’t have books.  If you’ve replaced your bookshelves with more wall space to hang art, I certainly will show you some indulgence…  All kidding aside, I find myself constantly copying these books.  So, in the age of the internet, it seemed à propos to put these catalogues online.  Here goes: this is an overview of Album I.  More will be forthcoming.  As I put other album overviews together, I will link pages (chrono)logically.

Album I

Etrepagny, January 26, 1861 – Paris, August 19, 1932)

Le Cavalier et le Mendiant

The Rider and the Beggar (English title)

Lithograph printed in black on tan wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 1; Boyer & Cate 1.
Plate number 1 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in red crayon (red pencil).
Image size: 14 ½ x 19 ¼ inches

Pierre BONNARD
(Fontenay-aux-Roses, October 3, 1867 – Cannet, January 23, 1947)

Famille

Family or Family Scene (English titles)

Lithograph printed in color, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 9; Boyer & Cate 9; Roger-Marx 4.
Plate number 2 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 14 ¼ x 7 inches

Maurice DENIS
(Granville, November 25, 1870 – Paris, November 13, 1943)

Madeleine (deux têtes)

Madeleine (tow heads) or Tenderness (English titles)

Lithograph printed in four colors on thin wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 19; Boyer & Cate 19; Cailler 70.
Plate number 3 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in purple ink.
Image size: 11 ¾ x 9 ¾ inches

Henri-Gabriel IBELS
(Paris, November 30, 1867 – Paris, February 1936)

Au Cirque

At the Circus or Circus Ring (English titles)

Lithograph printed in four colors on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 37; Boyer & Cate 37.
Plate number 4 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 19 ⅜ x 10 ¼ inches

Charles MAURIN
(Puy, April, 1856 – Grasse, July 22, 1914)

Portrait de Toulouse-Lautrec

Aquatint printed in brown ink on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 46; Boyer & Cate 46.
Plate number 5 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in blue pencil.
Plate size: 8 ⅞ x 5 ⅜ inches

Paul Elie RANSON
(Limoges, March 29, 1861 – Paris, Feburary 20, 1909)

Tigre dans les Jungles

Tiger in the Jungle (English title)

Lithograph printed in three colors on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 62; Boyer & Cate 62.
Plate number 6 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 14 ½ x 11 ⅛ inches.

Ker-Xavier ROUSSEL
(Lorry-les-Metz, December 10, 1867 – L’Etanglaville, June 6, 1944)

Dans la Neige

In the Snow or Training of the Dog (English titles)

Lithograph printed in four colors on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 76; Boyer & Cate 76.
Plate number 7 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 13 x 7 ¾ inches.

Henri de TOULOUSE-LAUTREC
(Albi, November 24, 1864 – Malromé, September 9, 1901)

La Lithographie, couverture pour la 1ère année de l’Estampe Originale

Lithography, cover for the first year of L’Estampe Originale (English title)

Lithograph printed in eight colors on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 84; Boyer & Cate 84.
Plate number 9 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 22 ¼ 25 ⅛ inches.

Félix Edouard VALLOTTON
(Lausanne, December 28, 1865 – Paris, December 25, 1925)

La Manifestation

The Demonstration (English title)

Woodcut printed in black ink on tan wove paper, mounted on a larger sheet, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 87; Boyer & Cate 87.
Plate number 8 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 9 x 12 ½ inches.

Edouard VUILLARD
(Cuiseaux, November 11, 1868 – La Baule, June 21, 1946)

Intérieur or Convalescence or La Sieste

Interior or Convalescence or The Nap (English titles)

Lithograph printed in two colors on thin wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan ; Boyer & Cate 90.
Plate number 10 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 11 ½ x 9 inches.

Go to Album II by clicking here.

Album III

Album IV

Album V

Album VI

Album VII

Album VIII

Album IX