Lucien, Bernard Moninot and Claude Viallat9 all express how enrich-ing these collaborative experiences were for them. In the 1990’s and 2000’s, only a handful of screenprinting workshops known in the field of contemporary fine art editions for the quality and originality of their work were still active. Three other print shops in addition to L’Atelier, each one having developed rich exchanges with artists in their own way, continued to exhibit at salons and were regularly mentioned in the specialized press: Éric Linard Editions, which left Strasbourg to set up in the Drôme region in 1996–the screenprints they produced with Jean-Michel Alberola, Jean-Charles Blais, Eduardo Arroyo and Erik Dietman were presented together in an exhibition in 2001 organized by the Afaa (Association française d’action artistique/French Association for Artistic Action) within the cultural network of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs10; the Arcay print shop, taken over in 1993 by Jérôme, the founder’s son, who worked with Vera Molnar and Mathieu Mercier; and Alain Buyse Editions, created in 1983 in Lille where, following the example of Éric Seydoux, the printer “fully devoted his time, expertise, talent and audacity to the artists that he happened to meet or that he sought out11”, such as Gérard Duchêne and Jacques Villeglé.

Right from the beginning of the 2000’s, the future of print shops specialized in screenprinting was faced with the concurrent develop-ment of highly modern processes such as digital printing and with the evolution of artistic practices. In 2005, Éric Seydoux asked12: “Is the mastery of our trade sufficient for guaranteeing the future of our activity?” Five years later, Olivier and Julien Ludwig-Legardez opened the TCHIKEBE studio in Marseille, a cooperative workshop specialized in editioning and printing artworks in silkscreen, pigment printing and custom framing. The creation of polyvalent print shops that combine silkscreen and digital technologies was a solution that Éric Seydoux, having been open throughout his life to new artistic propositions, had thought of to remain engaged with screenprinting in the realm of contemporary creation.

Cécile Pocheau-Lesteven, April 2025

Chief curator, responsible for contemporary prints and artists’ books-Department of Prints and Photographs, BnF