Ten-Minute Art School Course  History of Lithography The basic principle of lithography, “writing on stone”, was discovered by Alois Senefelder of Munich around 1798. Working on a highly porous stone, he sketched his design with a greasy substance which was absorbed by the stone. He then wetted the entire surface with a mixture of gum arabic and water. Only the blank areas absorbed the solution; the design area repelled it. Rolling on an ink made of soap, wax, oil and lampblack, this greasy substance coated the design but did not spread over the moist blank area. A clean impression of the design was made when a sheet of paper was pressed against the surface of the stone. Artists soon used this new process to make reproductions of the works of old masters and, in time, recognized it as a valuable medium for their original works. It received its biggest boost toward recognition when Currier and Ives popularized lithography in the middle of the 19th century. This new recognition and popularity encouraged printers to find more practical and faster methods of printing illustrations using the principle of lithography. The first steam press for lithography was invented in France in 1850, and was introduced in the U.S. by R. Hoe in 1868. The first use of the offset principle by lithography was for metal decorating about 1875. Lithographic stones were used for the image and a blanket-covered cylinder received the image from the plate and transferred it to the metal. Direct rotary presses for lithography using zinc and aluminum metal plates were introduced in the 1980s. These had difficulty printing on rough surface paper. In 1906, the first “offset” press as we know it today began rolling out printed sheets in Nutley, N.J., an invention of Ira W. Rubel, a paper manufacturer. Actually, the discovery was an accident. An impression was unintentionally printed from a press cylinder directly onto the rubber blanket of the impression cylinder. Immediately afterward, when a sheet of paper was run through the press, a sharp image was printed on it from the impression which had been “offset” on the rubber blanket. A.F. Harris had noticed a similar effect, and he too developed an offset press for the Harris Automatic Press Company of Niles, Ohio, in the same year, 1906. [courtesy of the Pocket Pal]

Ten-Minute Art School Course 

History of Lithography

The basic principle of lithography, “writing on stone”, was discovered by Alois Senefelder of Munich around 1798. Working on a highly porous stone, he sketched his design with a greasy substance which was absorbed by the stone. He then wetted the entire surface with a mixture of gum arabic and water. Only the blank areas absorbed the solution; the design area repelled it. Rolling on an ink made of soap, wax, oil and lampblack, this greasy substance coated the design but did not spread over the moist blank area. A clean impression of the design was made when a sheet of paper was pressed against the surface of the stone.

Artists soon used this new process to make reproductions of the works of old masters and, in time, recognized it as a valuable medium for their original works. It received its biggest boost toward recognition when Currier and Ives popularized lithography in the middle of the 19th century. This new recognition and popularity encouraged printers to find more practical and faster methods of printing illustrations using the principle of lithography.

The first steam press for lithography was invented in France in 1850, and was introduced in the U.S. by R. Hoe in 1868. The first use of the offset principle by lithography was for metal decorating about 1875. Lithographic stones were used for the image and a blanket-covered cylinder received the image from the plate and transferred it to the metal. Direct rotary presses for lithography using zinc and aluminum metal plates were introduced in the 1980s. These had difficulty printing on rough surface paper.

In 1906, the first “offset” press as we know it today began rolling out printed sheets in Nutley, N.J., an invention of Ira W. Rubel, a paper manufacturer. Actually, the discovery was an accident. An impression was unintentionally printed from a press cylinder directly onto the rubber blanket of the impression cylinder. Immediately afterward, when a sheet of paper was run through the press, a sharp image was printed on it from the impression which had been “offset” on the rubber blanket. A.F. Harris had noticed a similar effect, and he too developed an offset press for the Harris Automatic Press Company of Niles, Ohio, in the same year, 1906.

[courtesy of the Pocket Pal]