‘Die Lithografin’ is a lovingly crafted children’s book about the interplay of colors. Step by step, author and illustrator Gaby Bazin reveals the secrets behind the art of lithography, a centuries-old printing technique that can be so amazing, it even seems like magic.
With a blend of science, art, history and playful illustrations, she explains how water and oil don’t mix or how drawings vanish and then later reappear. In this workshop of a book, materials are drawn, inked, etched, rolled, and ground with sand until magical pictures can be printed.
This wonderful book is illustrated in lithographic style – in blue, red, and yellow – and takes us on a journey back to the origins of this fascinating reproduction technique. It tells of the many attempts inventor Alois Senefelder made more than two centuries ago to be able to print multiple copies of ideas, musical notation and art more easily. He experimented like a chemist until he succeeded in giving stone the gift of memory.
To this day, lithography has remained a special art form, while at the same time, serving as the very basis from which the techniques have been derived which are still used to print books, newspapers, and posters in our day and age.
GABY BAZIN (*1992) lives in Pantin, France, but grew up near the French Mediterranean coast. While studying Applied Arts in Paris, she discovered her love for books and making them. Today, she is a graphic designer, illustrator and printer as well as a member of the collective La Briche Foraine in Saint-Denis.
The book is featured in the section Children and Young Adults. “As an art book publisher, we’re good at photos, illustrations and text. What could be more befitting than to enable our children, in this digital world, to enjoy marvelous experiences on paper with their eyes, ears, hands, minds and hearts through good books?” CEO Nicola von Velsen, Hatje Cantz Publishing.
GoSee : hatjecantz.de
