My dissertation looks at a pivotal point in the history of the news image (c.1840 to 1860), when wood engraving and steam-powered printing presses transformed the genre into a mass medium that reached hundreds of thousands of readers. Using the format of the monograph and the work of French artist Constantin Guys, I argue that despite the advent of photography and other reproductive visual techniques, drawing formed the backbone of the new authority of the mass-produced news image. To make this case, I locate Guys’s drawings within a wide range of other tactics of transcription that made the printing of text and image possible––including stenography and printing telegraphy––to contextualize the strange persistence of this manual medium within the increasingly mechanized armature of the illustrated newspaper. As a study of the formation of trust in the news image at a moment of momentous technological change, my project identifies a vital origin point for pressing questions related to the truth and objectivity of the news in our contemporary moment, and places mid-nineteenth-century drawing at its center.

Date in university's graduation list: April 2003. / Thesis (MA (VA))--Stellenbosch University, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The body of the thesis explores contemporary South African printmaking by focusing on The Caversham Press, established in 1985. Caversham's success encouraged the opening of four other studios, which formed the core of professional printmaking in South Africa up to 2000. Positioning Caversham in a broader arena, the politicised nature of printmaking in South Africa prior to 1985 is discussed and six projects produced at the Press between 1985 and 2000 are examined to situate the Press within the South African socio-economic and cultural context. Finally, the interaction between prints from Caversham Press projects and the art market in Johannesburg is described and analysed to ascertain the extent to which these six projects were products of their time and place in South African art history. In Appendices IV and V, the candidate's own printmaking work, which examines male midlife depression and its impact on the marital relationship, is discussed. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die hoofdeel van die tesis ondersoek die hedendaagse Suid-Afrikaanse drukkuns op die werk van The Caversham Press wat in 1985 gestig is, te fokus. Caversham se sukses het aanleiding gegee tot die ontstaan van vier ander drukkunsateljees wat die kern van professionele drukkuns gevorm het tot in die jaar 2000. Deur Caversham in 'n breër konteks te plaas, word die gepolitiseerde aard van drukkuns in Suid-Afrika voor 1985 bespreek. Verder word die ses ondernemings wat deur Caversham tussen 1985 en 2000 opgelewer is in die konteks van sosio-ekonomiese en kulturele omstandighede ondersoek. Ten slotte word die interaksie tussen Caversham Press projekte en die kunsmark van Johannesburg ontleed en bespreek met die doelom vas te stel tot hoe 'n mate hierdie ses projekte die tyd en plek van die Suid- Afrikaanse kunsgeskiedenis reflekteer. In Bylae IV en V, word die kandidaat se eie drukkunswerke, wat depressie in mideljarige mans ondersoek en die gevolg daarvan op die huweliksverhouding uitbeeld, bespreek.