because it’s more recent and more industrial than the other tech-niques, was for these same reasons an esthetic choice. His ability to keep up with the latest “innovations” all throughout his career and to invest in machines that could, for instance, print with UV inks that allowed for an exceptional degree of subtlety, was also part of an overall project that he carried out with the artists. For Seydoux, the adventure could only take place through the chosen duos that he formed with those who make up his catalog today.

He was their technical guarantor, but he was also and just as much of an instigator. He encouraged painters, taking them out of their comfort zone to experiment with new techniques conducive to inno-vation. Claude Viallat thought of their relationship in this way, and it led him to give Seydoux extensive decision-making power: “I’d invariably begin with materials that were imposed upon me, and I’d continue working from there. He would send me the materials we’d be printing on, I’d make several models, and he’d choose the one he wanted to edition.”10 It was Éric Seydoux, then, who chose the print-ing surface for one of his most remarkably successful editions, Sac de Farine (“Flour bag”, 1997).

By pushing the boundaries of his expertise and not refusing the chal-lenge of putting his mastery to the test, the printer experimented for himself what he proposed to others. If we want to have an idea of his capacity for bending his medium, transforming a means of reproduc-tion into a tool that could give rise to resolutely innovative creative expression, we need only look at the incredible project carried out with Jef Gravis in 1996. Cum Grano Salis combines serigraphy and salt on glass, and when in contact with an iron oxide the work takes on an evolutive aspect. The edition raises the question of how to make each print that’s produced both a unique work of art and a kind of palimpsest made up of its many and unpredictable states.

This experimental jubilation reached its most fruitful culmination in the long collaboration between Éric Seydoux and Pierre Buraglio. It should be said that they both had a lot in common. In a rather clandestine way, Buraglio had also taken part in the Atelier Populaire at the Fine Arts School in May 1968. He never signed a single poster but was always there to “lend a hand”, which could only appeal to Seydoux. The printer said that he also appreciated the fact that the artist, “[a]fter May 68, […] did something that I greatly admired. He