About Giclee

Giclee on canvas

A giclee is an individually produced, high resolution, high fidelity, high tech reproduction done on a special large format printer.

Giclees are superior to traditional lithography. The colors are brighter, last longer, and are so high in resolution that there are virtually continuous tone, rather than tiny dots. The range, or "gamut" of color for giclees is far beyond that of lithography, and the details are crisper.

Lithography uses tiny dots of four colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. Colors are "created" by printing different size dots of these different colors.

Giclees use sophisticated inkjet technology. The process employs six colors: light Cyan, Cyan, light Magenta, Magenta, Yellow and Black. The ink is sprayed onto the page to create truer shade and Hues.

There are priced midway between original art and regular limited edition lithographs.

Giclees on canvas is becoming the new standard in the art industry. Because of its high quality, giclee is widely embraced by major museum, publishers and artists. 

Giclee prints on canvas are found at the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Chelsea Galleries.

Recent auctions of giclee prints have fetched :

$10,800 for Amie Leibovitz

$9,600 for Cheeks Close

$22,800 for Wolfgang Tillmans.

Sources: Art Publications and Art magazines.