Printing from blocks.
Zinc and wood photoengraving blocks in storage, 2020.
(Maitland Hospital Collection 48)
There are fifty zinc and wood photoengraving blocks in the Maitland Hospital Collection. Hospital engineer Bruce Pritchard recalls that they were ‘sent up from the old wares’ archives at the Maitland Mercury’.
The plates are significant as they provide tangible evidence of the mid-twentieth century technologies available for copying and printing photographs for publication, and they offer visual documentation of moments and experiences in the hospital’s history.
The process
Making the photographic printing blocks involved a number of steps, a team of people with specialist skills and was labour intensive.
The process began with the creation of a photographic film taken through a halftone screen that transformed the photograph into a negative composed of tiny dots. This negative was then delicately soaked and adhered to a glass plate and then transferred to the metal plate that had been coated in a variety of chemicals. The plate was submerged in an acid bath to etch away the exposed parts of the metal, leaving behind the raised dots for printing. The edges of the metal plate were then machine bevelled and parts of the plate that were not to be printed or were to remain white were removed. After being checked and refined, the etched plate was attached to a wooden block and sent to be printed.
The prints
In 2021 artist Anita Johnson carefully cleaned some of the plates with soap and water. Tom Goulder of Duck Print Fine Art Limited Editions had the equipment and expertise to print directly from the plates. She videoed the process.
Some of the images created through this process were digitised, enlarged and reproduced as giclee prints on museum grade fibre paper. A selection of these now hang in the Imaging wait area in the New Maitland Hospital. Visit Imaging prints to view the selected prints and details about them.
For anyone interested in the technical aspects of the labour intensive and skilled process of creating photoengraving plates, view the short 1950s documentary film The Art and Technique of Photoengraving, Horan Engraving, 1950s (28:55 minutes)
Anita Johnson also incorporated some of the Maitland Hospital photoengraving plates into An archaeology of care, one of the artworks she created for the exhibition, A Conspicuous Object - The Maitland Hospital, at the Maitland Regional Art Gallery.
Visit An archaeology of care to view Anita Johnson’s works in the exhibition and her commentaries about them.