Louis Fratino September 3, 2026
Etching with greased aquatint, sugar lift, spit bite, and drypoint on Hahnemühle Copperplate paper
19 1/2 x 23 3/4 inches (49.5 x 60.3 cm)
Edition of 25, 6 AP
Printed by Sarah Madden at SRM Editions, New York Published by Utopia Editions Signed, dated, and numbered recto
A new print by Louis Fratino, titled September 3, is now available in an edition of 25. Published by Utopia Editions, each print is signed and numbered by the artist.
In the present etching, Fratino depicts himself with his dogs as he sits in his own lush green garden, enjoying a quiet moment of intimacy. In the artist's words, “My work does come from lived experiences, but there's a lot more room for the fantastic in there. I think of my work as a physical residue of a memory. I let the drawing or the painting take over that memory and become something independent. Which, in an ironic way, is closer to how you really experience looking back on your past, which is so nonfactual.”
Fratino has made prints since 2021, working in both etching and lithography. Most recently, he has studied experimental etching techniques, exploring different ways to render volume and tonal variety with the medium. For this particular work, Fratino studied Pablo Picasso's grease-plate etchings—a kind of sugar-lift aquatint in which grease is initially applied to the plate to yield more variation in tone—and worked with printer Sarah Madden to re-create this effect, using four plates.
