My investigations began in Colmar where I had arranged to spend time in the workshop of Remy Bucciali, fine art printer and editor of contemporary etchings representing heavyweight French, German and Swiss artists. One of the last remaining master-printmakers, specialising in etching, in France. Bucialli describes himself as ‘orchestrator’ to the artists who come to his workshop in order to make an edition of etchings which are then sold at art fairs including London Original
Fair, Start in Strasbourg, Art Karlsruhe. He told me that he saw engraving as the string quartet of painting and that he has the role of interpreter for a new score.
Working alongside me in the atelier was a German artist, Margreth Hirschmiller-Rhinehard. It was interesting to see the cooperation between artist and ‘editeur’ with Margareth’s hand drawing with a sugar lift paste the areas of lights and darks that would eventually, after many processes of aquatint make her series of etchings The printing is done by Bucciali and his assistant. I asked Remy how artists came to work in collaboration with him. He described the way in which artists were invited to make work for editions as being a mutual process, ‘on se choisi’, he said meaning we choose each other.
Bucciali’s etchings are some of the finest I’ve seen and his remarkable technicality and finesse have gained him a reputation throughout the contemporary printmaking world. He was also chosen to make a series of copperplate etchings from the originals by Martin Schongauer, a medieval engraver so renowned that the master of engraving, Durer, is said to have traveled to see him in Colmar in 1492. Unfortunately Schongauer had moved twenty or so kilometres away a few years previously and had died by the time Durer got there. More about ‘le beau Martin’ as he was known, later.
Bucciali confided that he treated the copperplates he used to make the facsimiles of Schongauer’s engravings like ‘pierres précieuses’ or precious gemstones. The prints are now sold in the bookshop of the recently renovated Unterlinden which proved to be one of the highlights of my trip. After being shut for three years, the museum which I remembered as a slightly worn and fusty regional museum housing some magnificent medieval artworks, was inaugurated by Francois Hollande in February 2016. Swiss Architects Herzog and de Meuron of the Bird’s Nest and Tate Modern fame, stated ‘we were looking for an urban configuration and architectural language that would fit into the old town and yet, upon closer inspection, appear contemporary.’ It is now truly stunning.
The museum has almost doubled its interior space by linking the museum with an adjacent complex of historical buildings, including a 13th century convent and the city’s historic municipal baths. Its most illustrious work, Grunewald’s ‘Le Retable d’Issenheim’ now has the surroundings it deserves.
