Mario Avati, French (1921 - )

With the passing of Yozo Hamaguchi, Mario Avati stands alone as the foremost living mezzotint artist. In 2001 Fitch-Febvrel held a small retrospective to mark the artist's 80th year, as well as the publication of Volume VII of a catalogue raisonné now spanning more than 50 years of printmaking.

Mezzotint is among the most demanding mediums in art, one tried and quickly abandoned as "too difficult", for example, by the great printmaker M.C. Escher. A copper plate is "rocked" with a curved, notched blade until the surface is entirely pitted. At this stage, an inked plate would print a rich, uniform black. The artist then uses a scraper or burnisher to flatten the raised parts, a little f...