photogravure, about

Photogravure is really an old technique. The history of photogravure is inextricably tied to that of photography.

Invented in 1852, dissatifaction with the fugitive quality of early silver photographs drove Englishman William Henry Fox Talbot to transfer the image onto a metal plate for rendering in stable printer's ink, thus making Talbot the first artist to use photogravure.

While photogravure, and later, rotogravure, were used to commercially reproduce images, apparently artists were drawn to photogravure from the beginning. However, the difficulty of the process has kept it's use somewhat infrequent even as it remains very alive and well in the artistic community.