Screen Print on Woven Paper, Yannick Ballif, Abstract, 1976

Yannick Ballif was born Mariannick Swinnen on 7 August 1927 in Longwy, France. She studied drawing at the School of Arts and Crafts and Atelier Paul Colin in Paris. At the Julian Academy, she studied etching and engraving. From 1977 to 1984, she taught etching at the School of Applied Arts. She received numerous awards. Her works were exhibited in museums around the world. They were shown at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the General Library of California, as well as in Edinburgh, Prague, Buenos Aires, Wrocław, Katowice, and Bradford. She died on 4 July 2009 in Paris, France.

The work was made on Arches paper. This is watercolour paper produced exclusively using traditional methods on cylinder presses, giving it a regular texture. The cotton fibres are evenly distributed, making the paper’s structure more stable and resistant to deformation. It is coated with a layer of natural gelatine, which allows it to be stretched without the risk of tearing. It also retains the natural intensity and luminosity of colours, except for paints with a natural tendency to penetrate the paper’s structure.