Graphic
Hundertwasser mastered and innovated many graphic techniques, among them lithograph, silk screen, etching, colour woodcut and many others. He was one of the first to demand and practice complete transparency in terms of technique, dates of creation and editions for each sheet.
Hundertwasser never really created large editions of one and the same graphic work. His graphic editions comprise several colour versions and variants, which are not numbered separately, but instead numbered throughout the entire edition. It was his aim to make many different unique pieces within the art of the graphic, thereby going beyond machine production.
Hundertwasser always took great care to provide exact information about the work on each graphic sheet, in order to arrive at as complete a disclosure of a work's techniques and creation dates as possible.
On the graphics can be found:
- Hundertwasser's signature (in manuscript or as Japanese inkan stamps),
- date and place of the signature,
- oeuvre number,
- in many cases the name of the work,
- specimen number,
- listings or stamps and embossings of publishers, printers, paper and paint producers, or of the co-ordinators involved, and
- colour-separation marks..
 |
 |
- Many prints bear embossed, stamped or printed listings of colour variants, technical versions and edition sizes.
- On the plates, on the stones or on the screens, additional signatures were often given, but also work numbers, and names, sometimes including the name of the originals, as well as place and date of creation.
- In the case of many Japanese colour woodcuts the title of the work was printed in Japanese characters.
Occasionally Hundertwasser had the reverse of the graphic imprinted with all this information, and even went beyond that by listing the entire development and creative process of the print.
Hundertwasser documented the work of the technicians and printers with circular dots in the margins of the graphics, thereby marking what was taken from the source work. Square or numbered dots refer to Hundertwasser's own work for the graphic, marking what was newly developed for the work.
