Libis: Collotype from the Portfolio PUBLICITE PRESENTE PAR A.M. CASSANDRE (L’ART INTERNATIONAL D’ AUJOURD’ HUI #12). Paris: Paris: Editions d’Art Charles Moreau, c. 1929. First edition [ Libis, France / COUVERTURES DE CATALOGUES, Plate no. 45]. An Original anthology of modern advertising artwork selected by A. M. Cassandre. A collotype in good condition, with one turned corner and one chipped corner, and mild age-toning to edges.
Plate size is 9.875 x12.75 (25.0825 cm x 32.385 cm) and blank on verso. Printed by Heliotype (collotype) at Editions d’Art Charles Moreau in Paris.
The PUBLICITE portfolio consisted of 49 color and black and whiteplates selected by A. M.Cassandre to present an overview of Avant-Garde influences in the advertising arts (posters, typography, book design, announcements, etc.) circa 1929. A magnificent and scarce production produced for Charles Moreau’s L’ART INTERNATIONAL D’ AUJOURD’ HUI portfolio series.
Collotype (a dichromate-based process, also called Albertype, Artotype, Autotype, bromoil, Dallastype, Heliotype, Levytype, Paynetype, phototype, photoglyphic) is the most accurate and beautiful method of photomechanical reproduction yet invented. Collotype can produce results difficult to distinguish from actual photographs -- many old postcards are collotypes.
Collotypes have the advantage that they can render continuous graduations of tone without screen intervention. Making and printing of collotype plates is skilled and expensive work and the sensitized gelation surface is too delicate to produce more than two thousand impressions. For these reasons, collotype has been used for luxury publications and, since World War II, has been largely abandoned for other commercial purposes.
As a testament to its quality, many prints with an impressively high image resolution still remain from the Collotype era (circa 1880 to 1970) in perfect archival condition.
Collotype was consistently employed on a relatively small scale throughout most of the twentieth century as a specialist medium for the highest quality book illustrations and single-sheet fine art reproductions. Although its photographically accurate printing characteristics and exceptional colour qualities remain (even in the digital age) largely unparalleled, its economic viability was gradually eroded during the latter half of the twentieth century by faster and cheaper methods of print.
The ability of collotype to print in continuous tone without the use of a halftone screen enabled full colour images to be printed with far more fidelity than any of the subsequent screened, CMYK printing processes which dominate the print world today. Because of this it was able to achieve a wider colour gamut than is currently possible through digital imaging. A further advantage also lay in collotypes’ reliance on highly pigmented inks. These were far purer than modern offset litho inks, containing none of the synthetic additives now used to maintain maximum efficiency for high-speed commercial production.
Recommended reading: Studio Collotype by Kent B. Kirby and The Practice of Collotype by Thomas A. Wilson.
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