The Matrix

As Professor Sasha Grishin writes: "The artist, the print and the matrix sounds more like a title for a Peter Greenaway film than a title for an essay on the art of Bruno Leti." In printmaking, the artform - along with painting, photography and the making of artists' books - that has occupied Bruno Leti for the last half century, the matrix, is the object that carries the image the artist has made with the intention of making an impression on a piece of paper when it is run through a press at high pressure. It might be a block of wood, a piece of linoleum, a slab of glass or a metal plate. The British Museum has made a practice of collecting not only famous artists' prints, but also the matrices from which they were made. Bruno Leti has a studio full of old matrices, beautiful objects in themselves, even if they are no longer useful after a print has been editioned. This book celebrates the 'Matrix', with extraordinary photographs and illuminating texts.