Dorsey Potter Tyson

The American printmaker Dorsey Potter Tyson was born in Maryland; however, much of D.P.Tyson’s market was in England. His prints sold alongside those of the Elyse Ashe Lord, riding on the wave of popularity for the Art Deco style which was in vogue at the time. Like Elyse Lord, Dorsey Potter Tyson drew his inspiration from a wide range of oriental sources and like Lord, his art was essentially decorative in nature.

Dorsey Potter Tyson's highly decorative original colour prints appear, at first glance, to be colour printed etchings, which have then been extensively coloured by hand. They are in fact, the result of skilful colour printing alone, using a technique which effectively combines the printing of a normal etching simultaneously with that of printing a monotype. The lines of the etched design, which compose the basic image art inked with black printer's ink, and the surface of the plate is then cleaned in the manner used for printing a normal monochrome etching. Thick, coloured printer’s inks are then painted onto the surface of the plate using a brush as though painting a plate for a monotype printing; the proof is then printed at one pull through the press. This is a very time-consuming method of colour printmaking, but the results are striking and extremely decorative.