Just a few years ago the terms "art" and "inkjet print" weren't tolerated in communal context. Now, as with many media evolutions, sensibilities have to a large degree changed. One of the forces instrumental in altering the art community's entrenched mindset against the inkjet process has been a small digital fine-art inkjet photography studio by the name of Nash Editions. Through the collaborative pioneering of a handful of deep-pocketed, influential, and very determined artistic entrepreneurs, Nash Editions helped develop, refine, and establish broad acceptance for the digital fine-art inkjet printing. This is their story.
At first blush this lavishly printed (and expensive) book promises a consuming elegance that sweeps you away. It has star power too, with one of the leading personalities none other than Graham Nash of Crosby, Still & Nash fame. It also includes rich and very personal histories of the birth and labored growth of the digital printing service company, of permanence in various photographic media, and of photography itself as a medium of expression. The book also includes images by a broad selection of visual artists spread throughout in an eclectic smorgasbord.
But there are a few elements that detract somewhat from the book's rich objectives. With several authors contributing, certain parts of the story get repeated - several times in fact - and the tone at times begins to sound slightly obsequious and self-lauding, to the point that one is led to the impression that Nash Editions (the company) was pretty much the sole entity that dragged digital printing from practically nothing in the early 1990s to it's high level of sophistication and acceptance today. While Nash Editions can certainly claim historic "firsts" in several categories within the digital printing revolution, a thoughtful person might wonder if there weren't just a few other significant contemporaries working toward the same goals. And on a purely technical note, one of the sections of the book ends in the middle of a paragraph, leaving the reader guessing as to the intended conclusion; perhaps a little tighter editing would have been helpful.
So, should you buy this book? Yes, if you're a photographic artist interested in the history of the digital printing process or the concept and science of photographic media permanence. And of course it will serve too as visual stimulation and a contemporary two-dimensional artwork study; one can learn a great deal by looking carefully at other artist's work.