Biography
Cindi Royce Ettinger (b. 1956) is an American master printer and intaglio specialist. A native New Yorker, she is the proprietor of the C.R. Ettinger Studio, the only professional etching studio in Philadelphia. She earned her degree from the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) in 1978. After graduation she worked for two years in a New York print shop, then returned to Philadelphia and established her own studio in 1982. 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 that combine intaglio with cast-plaster sculptural forms — she has been a sustained host of the Philadelphia mokuhanga scene. The C.R. Ettinger Studio Gallery has hosted mokuhanga exhibitions, including the 2018 "Into the Fold" show, which brought together six international mokuhanga artists responding to themes of folding, portability, lineage, and community.
In 2021 Ettinger contributed the wood-relief and letterpress colophon for the "NOIR / KURO" exchange portfolio, a project of the Nagasawa 14 — an international group drawn largely from past participants of the Nagasawa artist-in-residence programme — coordinated by Nel Pak and Michael Reed as a satellite event of the International Mokuhanga Conference. The colophon, the formal printed credit page that identifies a portfolio's contributing artists, connected the studio's relief-printing capacity in 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, producing dimensional unique prints rather than editioned multiples. Alongside her personal work, the studio's collaborative programme has produced editions for a wide range of artists and has partnered with the Print Center in Philadelphia. Her four-decade career as proprietor of the city's only professional etching studio has made her a defining presence in mid-Atlantic American intaglio printmaking, while her patronage of the mokuhanga community — through exhibition space and hand-printed colophons — has helped connect the Philadelphia print scene to the international Japanese-woodblock revival.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1956
- Nationality
- 🇺🇸United States
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
Frequently Asked Questions
Cindi Royce Ettinger (b. 1956) is an American master printer and intaglio specialist. A native New Yorker, she is the proprietor of the C.R. Ettinger Studio, the only professional etching studio in Philadelphia. She earned her degree from the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) in 1978. After graduation she worked for two years in a New York print shop, then returned to Philadelphia and established her own studio in 1982. 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.
Cindi Royce Ettinger was active born in 1956. They were associated with the Contemporary Mokuhanga movement.
Cindi Royce Ettinger's work was shaped by the Contemporary Mokuhanga tradition in Japanese woodblock printmaking. Contemporary Mokuhanga: Contemporary mokuhanga (literally "wood-block print") encompasses artists working from approximately 1970 to the present who continue or reinvent traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques.