Decalcomania

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Decalcomania, or décalcomanie, a decorative technique by which engravings and prints may be transferred to other materials, was invented in Russia and introduced into the United States at least as early as 1868.

The surrealist Oscar Domínguez (referring to his work as "decalcomania with no preconceived object") took up the technique in 1936, using gouache spread thinly on a sheet of paper or other surface (glass has been used), which is then pressed onto another surface such as a canvas. Black gouache was originally used in Dominguez's practice, though colours later made their appearance.

Max Ernst also practiced decalcomania, as did Hans Bellmer and Remedios Varo. [1]

Richard Genovese originated the practice of photographic decalcomania, in which photographic scans are superimposed on decalcomanias. His images are decalcomanias produced in a rapid succession without forethought, the most 'beautiful' ones, the ones that suggest something more or other than a decalcomania are set aside. Then a series of photographic images are superimposed upon scans of the decalcomanias and bits and pieces suggest themselves into the framework of the 'paint blots'. Anything that seems forced is immediately rejected. The process is similar to gazing at cloud formations and visualizing objects within the wispy fog. The photographic images "magically" induce themselves to the decalcomanias and vice versa. It is all rather by chance encounter and the exercise is a sort of re-suggestion of through more traditional decalcomania.

The production of decalcomanias has not been confined to art. At Yale University fingerpaint decalcomanias have been analysed for their tendency, when the process is repeated several times on the same paper, to generate fractals.[2]

A variation of this procedure in which paint is applied to a paper, the paper then being folded, is popularly practiced (though without surrealist intent) by young schoolchildren.