History of the Giclée

A giclée is a print that is produced using inkjet technology to create an image on paper or canvas.

The giclée is a culmination of many efforts and credit for the creation is very difficult to pin point. To clarify this statement it is important to understand that the term giclée is defined as a digital print. Over the last 25 years many companies have been working on digital printing technology. The term giclée and digital printing as a means to reproduce art, well that is another story.

The term giclée was actually coined by none other than Graham Nash and R.Mac Holbert about 18 years ago. You may or may not know who Graham Nash is, but for a large number of us older folks, yes it is the very same Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Aside from his musical prowess, Graham also has a passion for photography which actually started long before his musical career.

Graham wanted to print his photos digitally and he had the money to invest in a high end digital commercial printer known as an Iris printer. At the time the Iris printer had a price tag of over a hundred thousand dollars. With the results Graham got from printing his photographs on the Iris, Graham and Mac developed a process for printing other fine art and the idea for a digital fine art studio was born. In the early 90's Graham and Mac formed Nash Editions, touted to be the first digital fine art print studio in the world.

Reluctant to use the term digital print to describe the final product, Nash Editions searched for a more artistic term. Basically a digital printer works by introducing a small amount of ink into a chamber. The chamber is heated or compressed and the ink is forced through a nozzle. This squirting or spitting is roughly translated into the French word giclée.

Unfortunately the inkset used by the Iris printer was a dye based inkset. Dyes as a colorant are not resistant to light or moisture. Dyes also have a tendency to migrate, or move through the substrate from areas of high density to areas that are less dense. The first giclées were not very durable and many people today still equate the word giclée with a print that will fade in a couple of years. That is far from the truth because many inksets today utilize technology that includes suspension of actual pigments in the ink.

One of the companies who spearheaded the research into improving ink longevity was DuPont. With years of experience in colorant longevity as a result of research within their automotive paint division, DuPont undertook research projects which lead to the development of nano-pigments. Nano-pigment particles are ground to be half of the size of the wave length of light. These particles, suspended in a liquid, were capable of passing through the microscopic nozzles of an inkjet. Qoro was actually formed under the supervision of DuPont executives, employees and retirees in the late 90's and early into 2000.

Other companies were also working on ink receptor coatings that could be applied to papers and canvases to receive the ink. These coatings employ the use of microscopic compounds that absorb the liquid contained in the drop of ink and adhesives which bond the pigment to the surface of the paper.

It is also important to note the work of Henry Wilhelm and Wilhelm Imaging Research. Henry Wilhelm is the leading expert on the longevity of photography and digital images. The Wilhelm Institute tests substrate and ink combinations and publishes the reports. Henry's work has lead to the development of better products over the last 20 years. For more information visit Henry Wilhelm's site.

All of this technology and chemistry culminates into prints which will withstand light and moisture for hundreds of years. Literally, the giclée is here to stay.