American Monotypes from the Baker/Pisano Collection | Page 11

for commercial printing, lithography became the economical
choice. As a result, lithographic presses, printing supplies, and
the knowledge of their use spread quickly and widely through
the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Although the monotype-like processes passed into disuse, artists
continued to be drawn to the original process of the monotype
through the twentieth century. By the beginning of the century,
the monotype was no longer merely an entertaining evening’s
recreation for the artistically inclined, like the Duveneck Boys,
or merely descriptive, as in the hands of Walker and Bicknell.
It was becoming a full-fledged, serious artistic medium. The
medium’s prestige grew with each new artist’s contributions
to monotype technique, particularly when artists began creating monotypes in color. American monotypists making color
monotypes by the 1910s ranged from New York artists including
Gifford Beal (American, 1879–1956) and Abraham Walkowitz
(American, 1878–1965) to California artists George Demont
Otis (American, 1879–1962) and John A. Stanton (American,
1857–1929). The American most involved in early color monotypes was working in Paris in the late 1800s: Maurice Brazil
Prendergast (American, b. Canada, 1859–1924).
In the 1880s, Degas had experimented with monochrome
monotypes. Those destined for exhibition, he then drew over
with pastels. However, in about 1890 he took up the medium

again, this time experimenting with color inks. It was just at that
same time that Prendergast, an exemplar of the experimental
monotypist, took up the color monotype seriously. Prendergast’s
body of work in the medium is unusually large, and his consistent use of color also sets him apart from his predecessors and
the majority of his contemporaries. Like Degas, he was intrigued
by the possibilities of the color monotype and undeterred by
the necessary speed with which the work of painting had to
be completed. Since he did not have ready access to a press,
Prendergast often printed his monotypes by rubbing the paper
down onto his designs with no more complex technology than
a wooden spoon. The advantage of this was that he could vary
the pressure he applied to the back of the paper, making it pick
up more ink in some areas than others. Prendergast’s enthusiasm
for the technique is reflected in the hundreds that he completed,
but also by his preference for showing his monotypes alongside
his paintings in exhibitions of his work. His images are nearly
always figural, often of fashionably dressed young women, as in
his Purple Hat (page 52).
Prendergast also championed an appreciation of second strikes
from the monotype, observing that, “sometimes the second or
third plate is the best.” 8 In other words, after pulling the impression from the plate, Prendergast made use of the ink that still
remains on the plate by reprinting onto a clean sheet of paper
to make another, fainter impression, a cognate with the first

INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN MONOTYPE

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