If you are a printmaker you get used to people saying things like "it's only a print" as if this fact alone were enough to dismiss a work as unimportant; as having no value as art. As I've said here many times, this stems from a fundamental sloppiness in the use of language, capitalised on by the mass sellers of posters. Although I still don't like the idea of calling a reproduction a print, I have had to accept that this is an argument long lost, even in the specialised language of the art world. However to call everything from a Durer woodcut, to a photograph torn from a fashion magazine to a collagraph by the same term is still wrong. The important word in talking about a silkscreen print is silkscreen, so the important word when talking about a reproduction print is reproduction. A real print is a distinctive and unique work of art.
Its a simple point and I'm going to keep making it...
