Monotype is a printmaking technique that produces a single unique impression from a painted plate. From Castiglione to Degas to Chagall, learn how it works.
A monotype is a contradiction. It is a print that cannot be printed twice. Every other printmaking technique, from etching to lithography to screen printing, exists to produce multiples. The whole point of a printing plate is that you can pull many impressions from it. A monotype plate gives you one. The artist paints or inks an image on a smooth, unincised surface, presses paper against it, and pulls a single impression. Most of the ink transfers to the paper. What remains on the plate is not enough to make a second print. If you try, you get a faint, degraded echo called a ghost print, which is a different thing entirely.
Monotype is a printmaking technique in which a single, unique impression is pulled from a smooth, unincised plate. The artist applies ink or paint to a flat surface, typically glass, metal, or plexiglass, and then transfers the image to paper using a printing press or by hand burnishing. Because the plate has no permanent marks, no incised lines, no fixed stencil, the image exists only in the wet ink on the surface. Once printed, it is gone. Each monotype is a one-of-a-kind work.
This entry covers how monotype works, where it came from, which artists used it, and how to tell a monotype from other types of prints. If you want to understand why some of the most painterly prints in museum collections are also the most singular, monotype is where to look.
There are two main approaches to monotype. In the additive method, the artist applies ink directly to the plate using brushes, rollers, or fingers, building the image from a blank surface. In the subtractive method, the artist covers the entire plate with a layer of ink and then removes areas to create the image, using rags, brushes, sticks, or fingers to wipe away the light passages. Both methods produce a single impression.
The plate is smooth. It has no incised lines, no etched grooves, no raised areas. It is simply a flat surface holding wet ink. The image lives entirely in the ink layer. When paper is pressed against the plate, the ink transfers. The pressure of the press, combined with the absorbency of the paper, determines how much ink transfers and how the image looks. Dry paper produces higher contrast. Damp paper produces a softer image with about 10 percent greater tonal range, because the damp fibers absorb the ink more fully.
After the first impression is pulled, some ink remains on the plate. A second pull, called a ghost print or cognate, is sometimes possible, but it will be much fainter and different in character. Some artists make ghost prints deliberately as a secondary work. Others rework the remaining ink on the plate and pull a second, related impression. But the first pull is the primary monotype, and it cannot be replicated.
A 2026 exhibition at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Emile H. Mathis Art Gallery, titled The One-Off Print: Monotypes in America from the Mid-Twentieth Century Onward, highlighted the versatility of the medium. The exhibition catalog described monotype as "a hybrid printmaking process" that "challenges one of the fundamental characteristics of most print processes: reproducibility." Read more at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
The invention of monotype is disputed. The two leading candidates are the Italian artist Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (c. 1610-1665) and the Flemish artist Antoon Sallaert (c. 1590-1650). Castiglione made brushed monotypes beginning in the mid-1640s, working from black to white by wiping ink off a prepared plate. He produced over twenty surviving monotypes, more than half of which depict night scenes. Sallaert produced monotypes in the 1640s as well, brushing bold, tapering lines onto the printing surface with precision. Both artists used the technique in different ways, but both recognized that a painted plate could produce a printed image with the quality of a drawing or oil sketch.
After Castiglione and Sallaert, monotype was largely neglected for over a century. William Blake (1757-1827) used a variant technique, painting on millboard in egg tempera to produce both new works and colored impressions of his prints and book illustrations. Each impression was then worked over by hand with ink and watercolor. But few other artists used the technique.
The modern history of monotype begins with Edgar Degas. Working primarily between 1876 and 1893, Degas created over 300 monotypes, transforming what was considered a minor technique into a sophisticated medium. He used the subtractive method extensively, covering the plate with dark ink and then wiping away areas to create luminous forms emerging from darkness. His monotypes of ballet dancers, cafe scenes, and landscapes captured fleeting effects of light and movement with an immediacy that no other printmaking technique could match. Degas often worked further on his monotypes after printing, adding pastel or oil to the pulled impression.
In the 20th century, monotype experienced a renaissance. Marc Chagall created extraordinary colorful monotypes in the 1960s. Henri Matisse, Sam Francis, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, and Jasper Johns all used monotype to produce works that combined the spontaneity of painting with the graphic quality of printmaking.
Castiglione is credited as the inventor of monotype. His The Creation of Adam (c. 1640s) is thought to be the first monotype print in Western art. Castiglione worked primarily in the subtractive method, covering a copper plate with dark ink and then wiping away areas to create white and grey lines against a black field. His monotypes have a painterly, atmospheric quality that resembles chiaroscuro drawings. He also produced monotypes using the additive method, brushing ink directly onto the plate. The Royal Collection Trust in London holds several of Castiglione's monotypes.
Degas is the artist who elevated monotype from a curiosity to a major technique. He produced over 300 monotypes between 1876 and 1893, working in two distinct styles. In the dark-field method, he covered the plate with ink and removed areas to create light forms against dark backgrounds, producing dramatic, nocturnal images. In the light-field method, he added dark ink to a clean plate to define forms against lighter grounds. His Three Ballet Dancers (c. 1879) and his cafe scenes from the late 1870s use the subtractive method to create effects that look like smoky, half-remembered visions. Degas often enhanced his monotypes with pastel after printing, creating works that blur the line between print and painting.
Blake developed a variant monotype technique, painting on millboard in egg tempera to produce unique impressions for his illuminated books and separate prints. His Pity (c. 1795) is a monotype enhanced with ink and watercolor. Blake's approach was idiosyncratic and not widely adopted, but his work demonstrates how monotype can produce images with a quality that is neither fully painting nor fully print.
Chagall created colorful monotypes in the 1960s that pushed the technique into new territory. His monotypes combine vibrant, overlapping colors with the soft, blurred edges that are characteristic of the medium. Chagall's monotypes have a dreamlike quality that draws on his longstanding interest in memory, folklore, and fantasy.
Johns has used monotype extensively, often in combination with other printmaking techniques. His monotypes explore the relationship between the unique and the multiple, using familiar motifs like flags, targets, and numbers in single-impression formats. The contrast between the reproducible subject matter and the unreproducible technique is part of the point.
Monotypes do not have a platemark. Because the plate is smooth and unincised, there is no indentation on the paper. The ink sits flat on the surface, transferred from the painted plate. The image may have a soft, slightly blurred quality, especially at the edges, because the ink spreads slightly during transfer.
Look for signs of a painted surface. Monotypes often show brush marks, finger marks, or the texture of rags used in the subtractive method. The ink may have a variable density, with some areas thicker and darker where more ink was applied or left on the plate, and other areas thinner and lighter where ink was removed.
The most reliable way to identify a monotype is to look for uniqueness. If a print is labeled as a monotype, it should be the only impression. If it is labeled as a monoprint, that is a different technique: a monoprint uses a permanent matrix, like an etched plate, combined with variable inking, so each impression is different but shares a common underlying structure. A monotype has no permanent matrix at all.
Monotype is distinct from all other printmaking techniques because it produces a single impression. Intaglio techniques (etching, engraving, drypoint, aquatint, mezzotint), relief printing (woodcut, linocut), lithography, and screen printing all produce editions of multiple impressions from a permanent matrix. Monotype uses no permanent matrix. The plate is simply a surface that holds ink temporarily.
For more on printmaking techniques, read our entries on etching and intaglio, or explore our post on how to read a painting to learn more about identifying printmaking techniques in museums.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York holds Degas monotypes, including his cafe scenes and ballet dancer studies. The National Gallery of Art in Washington has a significant collection of Castiglione monotypes. The Tate Modern in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York hold 20th-century monotypes by Chagall, Motherwell, and Johns.
If you want to see monotype at its most painterly, look for Degas's dark-field monotypes at the Met or the National Gallery. The combination of subtractive inking and pastel enhancement creates images that look more like paintings than prints, which is exactly the point. For more on the broader context of printmaking, read our entries on etching and lithography, or explore our guide to chiaroscuro and dramatic contrast to see how Degas used monotype to create dramatic light effects.
Discover other art terms you might be interested in
Aquatint is an etching technique that produces tonal areas using powdered resin and acid. From Goya's Caprichos to modern printmakers, learn how it works.
An artist's proof is a print pulled outside the numbered edition, traditionally reserved for the artist. From Picasso and Mourlot to today's 10 percent rule, learn how APs work.
Drypoint is an intaglio print made by scratching a metal plate with a needle. The burr creates a rich, velvety line that wears out fast. Learn how Rembrandt used it.
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