Laurent Schkolnyk, French

b. 1953 Paris

At the time Laurent Schkolnyk took up mezzotint, there were only a handful of artists in the entire world practicing the medium full time. Of these the master at that time was Yozo Hamaguchi. While Schkolnyk's mezzotint training was self-taught, he did study drawing and etching in the Beaux Arts School at the same time as he was completing his degree in medicine. His father and sister are physicians and to support himself and his art he became a forensic medicine practitioner in Nantes (in the south of France). Since beginning his art career he has had one man shows in France, Japan and the United States.

Color mezzotint is exceedingly time consuming work as three perfectly registered copper plates must be prepared for each of the primary colors - yellow, red and blue. Printing a small edition takes a long time as each color is a separate press pass. Editions are small as the mezzotint plate will wear down rather quickly. Schkolnyk's work has been available in the Untied States since the mid 1980s.