Monotype

The graphic technique monotype is often pejoratively as well as arrogantly dismissed as “kids’ stuff” because its possibilities are misunderstood – in silence, however, it is practiced with relish by some recognized artists. Nowadays it is extremely rare to see such prints in contemporary exhibitions, but, for example, in the Berggruen Collection in the Stüler Building in Berlin hang some wonderful sheets by Paul Klee (he called them oil color drawings or oil pauses). Also, among others, H. Matisse, Ch. Rohlfs and H. Janssen worked in this technique.

With the monotype (often mistakenly referred to as rubbing off or impression), only originals/unique pieces can be produced. That is why it is also called a “one-time printing process”. It is created by a single impression on (usually) paper from a plate (metal or glass or similar) to which ink has previously been applied by means of a roller or brush. And already for this there are further different possibilities, which are expression-determining and which want to be tried out… Thus there are the brush and roller monotypes, black-and-white, multicolored, stencil… and other monotypes with the different manifestations of color tensions and effects of the pressure forces and means as well as further pressure materials beside the paper.