IT is usual to have a harbinger to go before the writer of such a
book as this with a trumpet: my friend Herbert Read did this
office magnificently for the last book I wrote on prints. However,
it is the opinion of my publisher that by now I am capable of blowing
my own.

In this work it was not my intention to offer a cook-book, nor
to compete with the do-it-yourself kits that have added another
menace to life in our time. This book is addressed to the intelligent
layman and technical matters are discussed only as they affect a print
per se and not as they seem in the hands of a print-maker. I will
admit that as a working painter and print-maker I may have been
betrayed into discursions beyond this programme, but this was the
intent.

In the selection of material to present I attempt to give a sampling
of contemporary prints including some extreme experiments, with
the intention of indicating the enormous variety in this field, rather
than to offer a cross-section. It was clearly impossible to show the
great number of fine prints of this time, so prints which would be
provocative and little known were often chosen.

The definition of the orders of originality in prints might be
thought to be in the domain of curators and dealers, just as many
artists would leave questions of the mechanics of perception to psycho-
logists. From this book it will be clear that in the writer's view
both these matters interest the artist, because they have to do with
his relation to his world. So it seemed that the fun of investigating
variants and anomalies could also be permitted to the simple collector
and not restricted to the expert.

For permission to reproduce prints I wish to thank Madame M.
Lacourière, Messrs. Berggruen, Gheerbrandt of Galerie La Hune,
Kahnweiler of the Galerie Louise Leiris, Jaeger of Galerie Jeanne
Bucher, Aimé Maeght, and the Chalcographie du Louvre: all of

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