Serilith

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Serilith is not a process where a four color lithograph is printed and the serigraph painted over it. Instead all separations are hand drawn for both processes. Seriliths do not have dot patterns as found in average quality inkjet reproductions. Seriliths are really mixed media original prints, and not enhanced reproductions. It can be said that Andy Warhol became a major proponent of this technique well before the term serilith had been coined. Many of his works exhibit both lithograph and serigraph qualities with hand applied materials and are probably the most well known example of the serilith technique, which goes beyond just serigraphy, as his works are often categorized.

Prior to the coining of the phrase serilith to describe integrated serigraphy and lithograph processes, museums and art galleries in the 1950s and 1960s explored various ways to create museum and art gallery quality reproductions by combining both lithograph and serigraph techniques together with artisan hand applications, so it can be said the "serilith" technique was being applied in various combinations with artisan hand work before the phrase was coined, and probably started with high resolution 4 colour lithography printing presses after World War II. Some of these early serilth examples from the 1950s and 60s include works from the Renaissance and the Art Nouveau or Jugendstil periods.

[edit] Application

The serilith technique is used primarily to create limited edition museum and art gallery quality reproductions and print originals, where the life span of the reproduction or print, if properly prepared can exceed 200+ years before experiencing visual degradation from exposure to light. More flexible than giclees, seriliths can, between plates and processes, allow corrections to occur, and also allow hand techniques to be applied to get more realistic surface characteristics. For instance pencil, chalk or paint can be applied during or after the process, or in the case of unwanted flaws they can be removed from the reproduction at various stages to create a work that can be visually superior to the original work, if working from a final draft work or older original with damages or unwanted flaws.

[edit] Serilith Appeal and Market Values for Reproductions

The appeal for seriliths comes from the desire to own an extremely accurate copy of a museum or gallery piece at a fair price given the work involved and limited number of a seriliths created from the original work. The market value for such seriliths lies somewhere between the original work (usually owned permanently by a museum or gallery) and limited edition reproductions using the Giclée technique (produced today by fine resolution large bed ink jet printers, a technique originally creating using early IRIS printers) or multi-colour lithograph techniques created in the late 1980s. The reason for a serilith's generally higher valuation over other reproduction methods (although valuations also depend on the artist, subject matter and often the size of the work, popularity of the artist, there are many variables to art valuation) is the accuracy derived from the hundreds of hours of work it takes to create a serilith, and the degree of accuracy it takes to maintain perfect registration. The added flexibility of also correcting flaws between plates and processes in a more precise and controlled fashion gives the serilith technique a decided advantage over all other reproduction techniques used in creating accurate copies of museum or gallery work. On the other hand there is a significant investment in equipment, talented artisans and time required to produce a limited edition of high quality seriliths comparable to the original work in every way, save minute surface differences (such as paper folds for example, which cannot be simulated). The "limited edition" aspect is also linked to the durability of the plates, as seriliths typically can only be generated in small numbers before the plates lose their registration and accuracy (and artisans lose their patience doing the same thing over and over again!). There are also reproduction fees and royalties charged by the owner museum or gallery for creating reproductions of rare popular works, which like lithographs and serigraphs, adds to the cost of producing seriliths.