Today’s post is by our friend Beppe Quaglia. It is a beautiful tribute to his friend Michel Caza. You can read his newsletter written in Italian in English by using Google Translate at www.bqelearning.com
Ciao, Michel
Yesterday, in a hospital room, Michel Caza left us.
He was ninety years old and, true to himself to the very end, he kept on working and answering everyone who reached out to him until his final days — with the same clarity of mind as ever.
I am not sure there is a right way to describe a man like him. I will try as it comes to me, from the heart, because it is the only way I feel I can truly honour him.
Michel was, quite simply, screen printing itself. One of the founding fathers of FESPA in 1962, its president from 1996 to 2002, on the board for forty-four years. But these are titles, and titles do not tell you who he was. He was the man who took what he called “the old lady of printing” and reinvented her: continuous tone, his halftone without a single dot, anticipating by decades what others would only grasp much later. He worked with Dalí, Vasarely, Chagall, Miró, Leonor Fini, and with Pierre Soulages — who was also a dear friend: more than seven hundred and fifty artists in all, and it was always him, behind the press, turning their mark into something printable, something real, something that would last.
And yet. If you ask any of us what we truly remember about Michel, no one will mention the awards first — and he won more than three hundred and fifty of them. They will tell you about a man who answered. Everyone. In your own language, if he could. You would write to him with a beginner’s question and back would come pages, diagrams, teaching material, his time — and he asked for nothing in return. He taught thousands of people around the world, not because he had to, but because to him knowledge was something you give away, not something you guard.
And then there is something more personal. In the hardest moments of my working life, I often did not even need to call him: it was enough to know he was there, that his authority was within reach. That certainty alone gave me a steadiness and a calm that went with me in everything I did.
I did not always agree with Michel. On some things we saw matters differently, and I told him so. But not once did he fail to respect my point of view, to listen to me the way you listen to a true friend. Because that is what he was, above all: a friend, a confidant. Someone who managed to kindle in me the very same passion that burned in him — and whoever gives you a passion gives you a piece of life itself.
Thank you, Michel.
For the almost obsessive finesse, for the boundless generosity, for the arguments and for the respect. The screen printing we love is also, and above all, yours.
Rest now.
We will keep printing.
Who was Michel Caza?
Born Michel Cazaumayou in Lyon on 2 August 1935, Michel Caza discovered screen printing at the age of nineteen — almost by chance, while working as a student in a Stockholm studio. It became the work of his life. Across more than five decades he produced some 2,400 works — original serigraphs, fine-art prints, posters and catalogues — in collaboration with over 750 artists, among them Salvador Dalí, Victor Vasarely, Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, Leonor Fini and his friend Pierre Soulages.
He was a tireless experimenter, best known for perfecting an ultra-fine, “halftone without dots” continuous-tone process that was decades ahead of its time, and for advancing the use of UV inks and curing. And he gave away everything he learned: hundreds of technical articles, six books, and countless lectures and workshops that taught thousands of printers across the world.
- Co-founder of FESPA (1962); President from 1996 to 2002; on the board for forty-four years
- Member of the Academy of Screen-Printing Technology; Chairman from 2004 to 2006
- Winner of more than 350 SGIA and FESPA awards
- Recipient of the Howard A. Parmele Award (2010), the SGIA’s highest honour
His life’s work is gathered in his final book, “Michel Caza: The Chameleon of Contemporary Art” (2018) — a 4.5 kg, 580-page volume holding some 2,600 illustrations.
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