Meg Turner

Printmaker and photographer working out of New Orleans, Louisiana. Her practice spans prints, photography, and installation projects that respond to the landscape and the community she is part of.

In addition to her own work and contract printing, Meg serves as the master printer for local photogravure and wet collodion artist Josephine Sacabo. She founded the New Orleans Community Printshop and has since stepped back from a leadership position to focus on her studio practice.

She shoots primarily with a 4×5 Crown Graphic press camera, working in film and wet collodion.

A circular portrait embedded in a dramatic magenta-to-indigo gradient field, with deep black edges framing the composition

The long history of intaglio printmaking

The history of the intaglio print begins with images pressed into metal. Unlike relief printing, where ink sits on raised surfaces, intaglio holds ink within recessed lines and areas. A copper, zinc, steel or aluminium plate is inked, wiped, covered with damp paper and passed through a press. Paper is forced into every groove, producing an image defined by depth, texture and pressure.

That physical encounter gives intaglio a lasting appeal. Across five centuries, artists expanded the possibilities of the plate: burins created swelling engraved lines, acid produced quick and irregular marks, roughened surfaces yielded velvety tones, and photographic processes transferred continuous images onto copper. The basic operation changed remarkably little.

For New Orleans printmaker and photographer Meg Turner, this history is present in daily practice. Her prints sit alongside wet collodion photography, darkroom work and installation projects, all connected by an emphasis on material, atmosphere and hand-controlled processes. Her contract printing service and involvement with community printshops also place that history within a working network of artists rather than treating it as a closed museum tradition.

Australian collectors encounter intaglio through gallery exhibitions, artist-run editions, university collections and interstate art fairs. Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra each hold significant print collections, while Brisbane and Adelaide provide important stages for emerging practices. Understanding the medium’s development helps viewers read an edition as more than a reproduced image: it is an object shaped by tools, chemistry, pressure and time.

Engraving and the early printed image

Engraving appeared in Europe during the fifteenth century, when armourers and goldsmiths adapted their burins to printmaking. The Buxheim Saint Christopher, dated 1423, is often cited among the earliest surviving European prints. Its compact imagery and strongly defined contours reveal a process capable of carrying fine detail across a relatively small sheet.

The technique was quickly adopted for devotional images, portraits and book illustrations. Engravers pushed a hardened steel burin through a polished plate, leaving tapered grooves that held ink. Repeated lines could describe shadow, clothing, architecture and flesh, allowing a black-and-white image to suggest a much wider tonal range.

As workshops and publishing systems expanded, prints travelled beyond religious settings. They entered books, maps and civic collections, while artists such as Martin Schongauer and Albrecht Dürer demonstrated that the plate could function as an independent artistic object. Early intaglio images circulated through trade networks, carrying visual ideas between cities and generations.

Acid, editions and the workshop system

Etching introduced a different kind of mark. An artist covered a plate with an acid-resistant ground, drew through it and allowed acid to bite the exposed metal. Daniel Hopfer is generally credited with the earliest known intaglio etchings around 1500, transforming what had been a decorative armour technique into a method for making images.

Acid behaves differently from a burin. Its marks can appear fluid, abrupt or granular, giving etched lines a character that differs from engraved ones. Artists revised plates by stopping out selected areas, re-biting them and returning to the image over months or years. Every stage could create a distinct printed state.

Publishers soon recognised the commercial value of these variations. Workshops divided the work among designer, engraver, printer and publisher, allowing multiple impressions to be sold at different prices. Seals, banknotes and security documents became important applications, while Rembrandt’s experiments in seventeenth-century Amsterdam showed how irregular plate surfaces and selective wiping could create atmosphere, light and psychological depth.

Tone, texture and photographic reproduction

Mezzotint introduced a richly tonal method in the seventeenth century. Instead of drawing lines, the artist roughened the plate with a rocker and then smoothed selected passages to create areas of light and shadow. The resulting prints often resemble paintings in their deep blacks and velvety transitions, appealing to collectors who valued the appearance of an oil painting.

Aquatint, developed more formally during the eighteenth century, offered another route to tone. Resin particles formed tiny islands on the plate, and acid bit around them to create fields resembling wash or grain. Artists could combine aquatint with engraving and etching, producing images in which fine contours sat beside broad, saturated colour.

Drypoint added intimacy through its raised burr, although that burr wore down quickly and gave early impressions their special softness. Later, photogravure transferred a photographic negative to an etched copper plate. By the late nineteenth century, this process brought continuous tonal reproduction into illustrated publications. Intaglio therefore moved between fine art, commercial printing and scientific image-making without losing its central identity as a relief of ink and impression.

Plates, proofs and contemporary editions

Twentieth-century artists revived historical techniques while questioning the division between original prints and reproductions. An edition might include proof impressions, an artist’s proof, a signed print and a cancelled plate. These distinctions affected value and gave collectors a vocabulary for understanding how the image had been developed.

The Australian history of printmaking includes influential studio networks and institutions such as the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne and Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide. Their collections preserve the work of both established artists and printmaking communities working outside metropolitan centres.

Intaglio also exists alongside distinct Indigenous printmaking traditions, not as a substitute for them. Artists from Tiwi and Yirrkala communities have developed strong practices involving etching, cultural authority and community-controlled distribution. Their work demonstrates why the context of production matters as much as the technical process used on the plate.

The reach of prints has always exceeded their original settings. A present-day example of image-based collecting outside elite galleries can be found in the fan-driven world around Japanese idol culture, where portraits and scheduled releases circulate through international audiences. The objects and economies differ, yet the impulse to own a particular printed image connects both cultures.

Collecting and marketing intaglio in Australia

Australian collectors purchase intaglio through galleries, artist websites, print fairs and auction rooms in cities including Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Prices are commonly quoted in Australian dollars, with edition size, paper, plate type and framing affecting the final figure. An original copperplate intaglio may cost more than a photogravure or digital edition, yet it also carries different expectations of surface, tone and variation.

Clear presentation can help an edition reach beyond a specialist audience. Artists can find practical advice in Meg’s guide to marketing your printmaking, particularly when translating studio process into accurate edition information and an accessible sales narrative. Good photographs, measured descriptions and visible framing details also help buyers understand what they will receive.

Condition is especially important in Australia’s varied climate. Heat, humidity and coastal exposure can affect paper, plates and frames, while strong sunlight may fade sensitive pigments or photographic tones. Buyers should receive a condition report, archival materials and realistic advice about display and storage.

Keep the process visible

Intaglio rewards attention to evidence of its making. The plate mark records pressure; variations in ink reveal wiping and re-biting; changes in tone may preserve an artist’s revisions. These details give each impression a relationship to the plate and to the decisions made in the studio.

Meg Turner’s portfolio brings that visible process into contemporary practice through prints, wet collodion photography, installations and exhibition projects. Artists seeking collaboration can explore her contract printing service, while those interested in community production can follow her work with local printshops. View the available editions, follow the studio’s current projects and contact Meg about print collaborations, commissions or contract printing.