Wim Griffith Art Gallery

A Giclée (pronounced Gee-clay) is a museum-quality fine art edition. This is a digital process I use to produce my original digital paintings on canvas. The word Giclée is a French word meaning "sprayed". My Giclées are made on the highest quality Iris Giclées printers used in the industry to produce this new form of fine art.
How is a Giclée made?
The process of fine art printing has become even more precise with the revolutionary Giclée printing process. A fine spray of ink consisting of more than four million droplets per second is sprayed onto archival art paper or canvas.
Each calculation of hue, value and density direct the ink from four or eight nozzles. This produces a combination of 512 chromatic changes, with over three million colors possible. This highly saturated, non-toxic, ink produces the rich opulent color of the original with its artful nuances. No screens are used in this process. The resolution of the digital print is higher than traditional lithographic print and has a wider color gamut than serigraphy. Giclée prints render deep, saturated colors and have a beautiful painterly quality that retains minute detail, subtle tints and blends. Every brush stroke of the original painting is apparent.
There are several great advantages to this process: finer detail, richer, more accurate colors, and the ability to print on real artist's canvas which can be rolled and stretched just like an original painting. That means a Giclée limited edition is closer to the original painting than is possible by any other process. Added to this, my work is also artist-embellished, which means texture has been added by hand to the surface of the print recreating every brush stroke.
When you hold a Wim Griffith original Giclée limited edition in your hands, you will be amazed at how much it looks and feels like an original painting.
As an artist I can not begin to tell you how excited I was the first time I saw my work created with this process. These Giclées on canvas look just like a painting. You will be astounded when you see it for yourself.
Giclée limited editions cost significantly more to produce than ordinary limited editions, for obvious reasons. They are naturally priced higher because of the vast amount of hand detailed work that enriches each piece.
Why do you call your Giclées original?
Most artists start with an original painting and digitalize it by scanning it and then print it using this digital Giclée process. It is important for you to understand that my works are painted by hand, brush stroke by brush stroke, using a computer to start with. There is no one original painting, each is an original. When I cast a bronze sculpture, the original clay sculpture is lost in the mold making process. Like bronze is the medium and one of a limited edition, my Giclées are my medium, they are the originals, and each one is part of a limited, signed, and numbered edition. I know you will treasure the Wim Griffith original Giclées you add to your collection of fine art.
How long does a Giclée last?
Giclées have undergone extensive testing by Wilhelm Imaging Research, Inc., a leading authority on the care and preservation of prints, photographs, and films. Wilhelm's testing has shown that under standard conditions, a Giclée can last as long as 32-36 years before noticeable fading begins. It is important to note that in all media colors fade. Depending on the composition of the paints, many original paintings will fade faster than a Giclée.
In addition to the highest quality inks, my Giclées have also been coated with a UV varnish that will add years of preservation to my work.
What retail prices do collectors pay for Giclées?
The retail price varies depending on many factors, such as the artist's reputation, the size of the edition, and the size of the print. A small format from a large edition can sell for as little as $100-$300. At the other extreme, Giclées by David Hockney can run in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Have any museum taken interest in Giclées?
Giclée prints have an impressive exhibition record. They have been shown in museums and galleries throughout the world. Dozens of museums have mounted exhibitions or purchased Giclees for their permanent collections. These include The Metropolitan Museum (New York), the Guggenheim (New York), the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), the Philadelphia Museum, the Butler Institute (Youngstown, OH), the Corcoran (DC), the National Gallery for Women in the Arts (DC),the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts (DC), the Walker Art Center(MN), the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, the New York Public Library Print Collection, the High Museum (Atlanta), the California Museum of Photography, the National Museum of Mexico and the San Jose Museum, among others.