With the popularization of photography as a cultural phenomenon in the mid-nineteenth century, a long tradition of quality fine art prints related to Mexico began. From the Mayan vistas of Désiré Chamay, to the landscapes of Hugo Brehme, to the classic imagery of Paul Strand, or the recent collaborations of Francisco Toledo and Graciela Iturbide with American and European workshops, one finds a continuing interest in the fine art print in Mexico. The Mexican Portfolio of photogravures by Paul Strand is perhaps not only one of the most renown examples in this vein, but is also an unsurpassed printmaking masterpiece in the history of photography.

In stark contrast to this printmaking aesthetic are the enormous technological and aesthetic changes in the contemporary world, where images are more ubiquitous and commonplace than ever. If to this we add the digital revolution, we discover the significance of many contemporary images is more for a “sound bite” or an email; that the print quality (if they are even printed at all) has become increasingly homogenous, produced to the digital standards of transnational printers, inks, and papers. In this context Izote Editions: Photogravure and Graphics Workshop proposes the revival and dissemination of the photogravure technique in the contemporary Mexican art world.

It is important to point out that we are talking of a revival—the technique of photogravure dates back to the inception of photography, when salted paper prints were still unstable. For this reason, such pioneers as William Henry Fox Talbot looked to the medium of gravure as a more permanent alternative to the ephemeral prints of the era. Over the course of various decades the process continued to be improved upon until it became the copperplate photogravure known today: an unsurpassed printmaking technique in the history of photography.
The great American modernist photographer Alfred Stieglitz used to say that the photogravure reproductions in his magazine Camera Work weren´t really reproductions, but multiple originals. It is precisely a subtle distinction in the quality of this process that distinguishes it from other printing processes and in which the aesthetic uniqueness of photogravure resides. What sets apart an original gravure print from that of a lithograph, or an offset, or a digital reproduction, is the binary characteristic of these latter three processes: that is, either they print or they don´t, they aren´t continuous tone. A photogravure, in comparison, is etched continually in the acid as the image is formed. With a lithograph, or offset, or digital reproduction we always speak of the resolution of the image: continuous tone values are translated into a series of screened dots. In addition to this binary characteristic not found in photogravure, it is worth mentioning that a photogravure print is literally stamped into the paper, with a minute relief to the image itself, and a bold plate mark surrounding the entire image area. The sum of these details is what makes each photogravure print genuinely unique.

Production of a copperplate photogravure may be roughly categorized in four phases: Printing the continuous-tone positive, exposing and etching the gelatin and plate, pulling color trial proofs to arrive at a bon à tirer (B.A.T.), and finally editioning the plate. The first phase consists of enlarging the original negative onto film the size of the final gravure. This enlarged positive is then used as the matrix for the exposure of the gelatine tissue used to control the etch of the copperplate in the second phase. In the third phase, etching ink may be ground and modified until the desired color and tonal characteristics are achieved. Finally the edition is pulled to match the B.A.T. established in the third phase.

The knowledge and practice of Izote Editions has as its foundation the more than 25 years of experience of master printmaker and photogravurest Byron Brauchli. He has worked with such artists as Robert Rauschenberg, Kate Breakey, Robb Kendrick, William Wittliff, Antonio Turok, and Francisco Mata, among others. He has taught at such institutions as The Centro de la Imagen (Mexico City), the Centro Fotográfico Manuel Alvárez Bravo in Oaxaca City, the Unversity of Texas at Austin, and the University of Veracruz, among others. Izote Editions, a non-profit organization, is composed of Brauchli and two partners, Guillermo Espinoza, a printmaker and graphic artist, and Leticia Mora Perdomo, a researcher and art critic. The goal is to promote a revival of photogravure and other alternative photographic processes via editions of portfolios by artists and photographers. It also contemplates production of hand-made inks and other etching supplies locally, and lastly, the organization of exhibitions that will help revive, preserve, and transmit alternative photography in contemporary Mexico.