Giclée art reproduction

Read about Giclée printing technology and its acceptance by major art museums


Giclée, pronounced “zgee-clay” (think French pronunciation) is a technically sophisticated inkjet printing process that was introduced in the late 1980s. The technology is widely accepted and used today for fine art reproduction, because it produces prints which truly capture the detail, depth of color, nuance and subtleties of the artist's original intent. Giclées printed on canvas have the appearance of being original paintings.

Dozens of museums have mounted exhibitions or purchased Giclées 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, the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, the New York Public Library Graphic Collection, the High Museum (Atlanta), the California Museum of Photography, the National Museum of Mexico and the San Jose Museum, among others.

The first step in the Giclée reproduction process is to generate a high resolution digital scan of the image, taken directly from the original painting. These digital images typically have greater resolution (fine photographic detail) than the human eye is capable of discerning, so the image is digitized without deterioration of the image quality.

The specialized ink-jet printers use archival quality inks that are resistant to the ultra-violet light in sunlight. Each Giclée print is protected with a clear UV coating. It should be noted that the printing technology has only been around for a few decades, so it is difficult to make claims for how long the inks will maintain their color accuracy and not fade. Currently, the testing that has been done in the field indicates that Giclée prints made with quality inks will not exhibit noticeable fading for 35 years or more. Clearly, direct sunlight on a Giclée print is not a good thing for the life of the print, and should be avoided.