The Printing Workshop – Imagerie d’Épinal

The Printing Workshop – also called Imagerie d’Épinal – is part of the Cité des Images complex in Épinal, which celebrates the city’s special history in the reproduction of colour images. The workshop has been open to visitors since 2016. It began in 1796 as the Imagerie Pellerin. This printed woodcuts and coloured them with stencils. Lithography was introduced from the 1850s. The popular prints were of military, religious and historical subjects, folk tales and children’s stories. Later production included advertising prints, toy theatre sheets, product labels and wallpaper. Today the workshop still uses hand-operated presses to produce original images. Historical equipment for stencilling, printing and paper-cutting is on display and visitors led by tablet computers or by guides can watch techniques in use.

Also in the Cité des Images complex is a museum that shows historical and newly created images from a collection of over 100,000 items representing colour image production in Épinal and other centres in France, Germany, India, Japan and elsewhere.