Lino printing is a form of fine art printmaking where the printing plate is cut into lino. Yes, lino as in linoleum, as in the floor covering. The lino is then inked, a piece of paper placed over it, and then run through a printing press or pressure applied by hand to transfer the ink to the paper. The result, a linocut print. Because it's a smooth surface, the lino itself doesn't add texture to the print.
Linoleum was invented in 1860 by a British rubber manufacturer, Fredrick Walton, looking for a cheaper product. Lino is made from linseed oil and Walton got the idea "by observing the skin produced by oxidized linseed oil that forms on paint."1 Very basically, linseed oil is heated in thin layers which thicken and become rubbery; this is then pressed onto a mesh of coarse threads to help hold it together in sheets. It didn't take long after the invention of lino for artists to decide it was a cheap and easy material for printmaking. Lacking any art historical tradition, artists were free to use it however they wished, without facing negative criticism.
When Was Lino First Used for Printmaking?
The use of lino to create art is "primarily attributed to German Expressionists such as Erich Heckel (1883-1944) and Gabriele Munter (1877-1962)"2. Russian Constructivist artists were using it by 1913, and black-and-white linocuts appeared in the UK in 1912 (attributed to Horace Brodzky). The development of color linocuts was "driven by the influence of Claude Flight (1881-1955)" who taught linocut in London at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art between 1926 and 1930.2
Picasso is known to have produced his first linocuts in 1939 and continued doing so into the early 1960s. Picasso is often credited with inventing reduction linocuts, where a piece of lino is used multiple times in one print, being recut after each color has been printed. But reduction lino "seems to have been in use by small-scale commercial printers for some time before [Picasso] made it his own. It was one such printer of posters who suggested to Picasso that he might find it an easy way of keeping the various colours in registration with one another."3
Matisse also made linocuts. Another artist famous for his linocuts is Namibian John Ndevasia Muafangejo. His prints often contain explanatory words or narratives in English on them.
Next: Types of Lino for Printing
References
1. The History of Linoleum, by Mary Bellis, About.com Guide to Inventors (accessed 28 November 2009).
2. The Printmaking Bible, Chronicle Books page 195
3. The Complete Manual of Relief Printmaking by Rosemary Simmons and Katie Clemson, Dorling Kindersley, London (1988), page 48.
