Cindi Royce Ettinger

Cindi Royce Ettinger (b. 1956, Roslyn, NY) is an American master printer, intaglio specialist, and proprietor of the C.R. Ettinger Studio, the only professional etching studio in Philadelphia. She earned her B.F.A. from the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) in 1978, having entered the school intending to study painting before changing her major to printmaking. After graduation she worked for two years in a New York print shop, then returned to Philadelphia in 1982 to establish her own studio. The C.R. Ettinger Studio has now operated for over four decades as a collaborative printmaking facility, producing editions for a diverse roster of artists in intaglio and relief techniques.

Ettinger's connection to the Japanese mokuhanga tradition is institutional rather than primary-medium. While her own studio practice is rooted in intaglio — etching, aquatint, drypoint, and unique works combining intaglio and printed plaster sculptural forms — she has been a sustained patron and host of the Philadelphia mokuhanga scene. The C.R. Ettinger Studio Gallery has hosted multiple mokuhanga exhibitions including the 2018 'Into the Fold' show that brought together six international mokuhanga artists responding to themes of folding, portability, lineage, and community. Mokuhanga programmes are partly underwritten by the Cindi Royce Ettinger Fellowship and through partnership with the Second State Press print collective.

In 2021 Ettinger contributed the wood-relief and letterpress colophon for the Nagasawa 14 'NOIR / KURO' international mokuhanga exchange portfolio coordinated by Nel Pak and Michael Reed. The colophon — the formal printed credit page that identifies the portfolio's contributing artists — was a hand-printed wood-relief-and-letterpress sheet that placed Ettinger at the institutional centre of the international mokuhanga community even as her own studio practice remains in intaglio. The colophon connects the C.R. Ettinger Studio's relief-printing capacity (woodblock and letterpress) to the broader mokuhanga community's portfolio-exchange infrastructure.

Ettinger's own studio output combines intaglio printmaking with sculptural elements derived from cast plaster. The 'Geological Portrait' series (Asfridur 2014, Svartur 2014, Sagn 2018) presents printed plaster forms with relief-printed surfaces; works including 'Genie' (2016), 'Thaw' (2014), 'Memory' (2015), and 'Spotlight' (2016) layer aquatint on plaster mounted on aquatint-printed paper, producing dimensional unique prints rather than editioned multiples. The 'Wraparound (Sandy)' (2014) and 'Polar-Oid' (2014) prints address the North Atlantic and Arctic-coastal landscape, and the title 'Asfridur (divine beauty)' uses an Icelandic name as the foundation of a feminine-figure portrait, signaling her sustained interest in Nordic-Atlantic narrative.

The C.R. Ettinger Studio's collaborative programme has produced editions for a wide range of artists including Don Colley, the 2021 IMC mokuhanga community, and the Print Center Philadelphia partnership. Ettinger appears as the master printer on multiple multi-artist exchange portfolios, in addition to her own studio output. Her four-decade career as the proprietor of the only Philadelphia professional etching studio has made her a defining institutional presence in mid-Atlantic American intaglio printmaking, and her sustained patronage of the mokuhanga community has connected the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh print region to the international Japanese-woodblock revival.