What is the Difference between an Original, a Giclée Print
and an Art Print?
To put it simply, an original piece of artwork is the first the artist created - where the pen (or paintbrush!) actually touches the paper. A print is a copy that has been taken from the original.
Original Artwork
An original piece if artwork has been created by the artist themselves. This could be using all kinds of mediums like oil paints, watercolours, acrylic paints, graphite pencils, charcoal or pastels. It'll be a truly unique and a one-off piece of art.
Art Prints
An art print is a printed reproduction of an original. A print can be printed using a variety of different printing methods and on a range of different print materials. They can be produced over and over again - an infinite number of times, unless they are limited edition. Limited edition prints will only have a set number of prints produced (this is something the artist decides), once they have all sold there won't be anymore available.
A standard art print is printed using a four colour method - cyan, magenta, yellow and black are mixed in the form of tiny dots to build the artwork.
Giclée Prints
The word Giclée was adopted by Jack Duganne around 1990. It refers to the technical way in which these types of artwork are printed.
First things first, a Giclée Print is a type of art print. It is typically a much higher quality print than a standard Art Print. To be classed as a Giclée Print it has to meet very specific characteristics.
Giclée prints use a totally different type of printer to art prints. This printer has 12 colours instead of four. This means that it can be matched to the original artwork's colours exactly, without loosing any vibrancy.
