lithography

Lithography, planographic printing process that makes use of the immiscibility of grease and water.

In the lithographic process, ink is applied to a grease-treated image on the flat printing surface; nonimage (blank) areas, which hold moisture, repel the lithographic ink. This inked surface is then printed—either directly on paper, by means of a special press (as in most fine-art printmaking), or onto a rubber cylinder (as in commercial printing).

Lithographic printing on a modern rotary offset press can produce high-quality, finely detailed impressions at high speed. It can reproduce any material that can be photographed in the platemaking process. As a result, it accounts for more than 40 percent of all printing, packaging, and publishing carried out; that percentage is more than twice the percentage produced by any other single printing process.

After about 1825 many firms that utilized the lithographic process were established for producing a variety of commercial work and for distributing popular topical, historical, and religious subjects to a wide audience. The best known of these publishers was Currier & Ives of New York City. The firm’s popular lithographs were printed in black ink and were often hand coloured by an assembly line of women, each of whom applied a separate tint of watercolour.