The Kamakura Print Collection, Photogravure Etchings by Peter Miller

Videos: A six-minute tour of Kamakura's renowned Hokokuji bamboo garden and my nearby photogravure workshop -- Accidental Discoveries and Unexpected Pleasures. Another take, by Kamakura-TV, is here (in Japanese). Vladivostok-TV interviews Artetage Modern Art Museum Director Alex Gorodny and me during the Sept 2008 Seascapes exhibit there (in Russian).

Site links: To learn how photogravure etchings are made, who invented the technique and why, get guidance on framing, assembling an art collection and investing in art, see related sites, visit the Learning links. For on-line purchase and gallery information, visit the Purchasing page. Get an independent, art-inspired view of the world at Views of The Kamakura Print Collection.

Consider small prints. Everyone knows these are hard times. Even for those who can afford megabuck-art, this is no time to flaunt excess wealth. But there's no reason not to have the finest expressions of printmaking art and craft. With prints of intimate scale, it's possible to have artwork that's more in keeping with the times, and at the same time to enjoy it more. The more personal scale of small prints invites closeup viewing of fine points and features that might be missed in larger works. Conveniently grouped here, they fit easily on the desktop or any handy surface. See framing tips for novel ways of making original prints part of your surroundings.

Series links: If you're looking for ensembles that go well together, browsing by Series is a good way to identify likely prospects. The Series pages show all dimensions, making it easy to plan for framing and placement in any setting.

Sub-Series: To help further in putting together ensembles of prints on related themes, the site also groups Sub-Series prints together. For example, the Seascapes Series includes Waves, Currents, Traces, and Lakes. Clicking any image in the Series leads to a full-screen view. New works are here.

All works may be purchased on-line by clicking the 'Purchase and order information' below each full-screen image. These link directly to the price and order form for that particular full-screen image. Purchasing information for each Series may be found with these links, which are also on every Series page. For personal advice in selecting prints suitable for your own setting and taste, please feel free to ask by email. A call by phone or Skype may also be arranged, just let me know the phone number or Skype ID, and preferred time wherever you are.

Navigation: Navigation bars at the top of each page show the path from this Home Page, with links showing each step of the way. Navigation bars at the bottom of each page provide links to every Series (Seascapes and so forth) of photogravure etchings. On the full-screen pages, navigation bars at the bottom provide links to all other prints in the active Series. With these links it is possible to see the entire Series sequence full-screen without returning to the Series page, to proceed in any sequence, and to take as much time with each image as needed. To see all the images in a Series on one page, just return to the Series page with the top navigation bar.

When purchasing, please note our airmail package delivery is free. That's right, no charge for shipping anywhere in the world, and delivery is fast -- generally within one week of payment. How can we afford to do this? It's very simple: I prefer to concentrate on etching and printing, instead of taking time to nitpick shipping charges (not to mention the time to include shipping formulas into this site). So the price you see listed is the price you pay, no extra charges for postage, handling, or anything else. Pay in Euros, US Dollars, Pounds Sterling, Swiss Francs, Danish or Norwegian Krone, Swedish Krona, Japanese Yen, Hong Kong Dollars, Singapore Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Australian Dollars, or New Zealand Dollars. The easy purchasing procedure is explained on the Purchasing page. Your original photogravure etching can be delivered in a week. Questions? Get quick answers by return email...

Site Notes

Japanese text (kanji): To see the Japanese titles of these prints on your computer, set 'character encoding' to Unicode (utf-8), shift-JIS, another Japanese font, or 'Auto-detect Japanese' if Japanese fonts are installed on your computer. In Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Netscape, the character-encoding setting is in the View menu. If Japanese fonts are not installed on your computer, the kanji may appear as blocks or something else unintelligible.

About the artist. An irreverent summary.

Searching: Print and Series titles may also be found through the search box. The Series and sub-Series are described in more detail on the Viewing page. If a search shows old pages, refresh by pressing the F5 key, or the 'Reload' button. Do this anyway to be sure of seeing the most recent version of each page. (Otherwise your browser may show its 'previously cached' [stored] version of the page.)

Screen resolution: Full-screen images are best viewed at a screen setting of 1024 x 768 pixels.

Browsers: Firefox is the recommended browser. It has the best security and privacy controls, and its open-source philosophy makes it as widely compatible as possible. Other browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Opera, and others will also work for this site. If text is hard to read, please set your browser to override the background and text colors used at this site, and set your own preferred colors. (This site uses dark background and light text colors.)

Sending a message: Please enter (type) the address into your email software. The email address is not 'clickable' because this generates a ton of junk, so please type the email address one character at a time. You will get a quick answer. Privacy notice: There are no ads, cookies, tracking devices, no means of passing any viewer information onto others. I send announcements of new prints or exhibits very infrequently. When you order a print, the only information required is your email address to confirm your order, and mailing address so that the print is delivered to you.

Photogravure etching and other printmaking techniques: Photogravure etchings are also called gravure prints, copperplate engravings, aquatint dust-grain gravures, or héliogravures. 'Polymer gravure' refers to plates with a polymer resist as the printing surface; despite the name, there is no gravure, etching, or engraving. 'Photo-etching' is a half-tone process similar to commercial printing; the dots are visible and the tonal range is limited by the lack of a resist that would allow for variable-depth etching. 'Photo-lithography' is a term used in the semiconductor industry to describe the patterning of semiconductor wafer resists and printed circuit boards prior to etching. 'Rotogravure', despite the similar-sounding name and the Easter-song fame, is an essentially different process, formerly used for Sunday supplements; as a fast production process, its depth and tonal range were limited by the rotary (as opposed to flat) plate and by the thinner inks used. Photogravure is one of many 19th-century photographic processes, which include platinum, palladium, carbon, cyanotype, and others. See 'Photogravure Etching in the Intaglio Tradition' to learn more about how photogravure is related to the origins of engraving and etching.

This Kamakura Print Collection site first appeared on the World Wide Web in August 1997. Starting with photogravure etchings from Kamakura, Japan, it has since grown to include images from other parts of Japan, Asia, and Europe. The site also provides practical how-to information for people seeking to purchase photogravure etchings, or make their own.