Thomas Demand Klee, 2025

Klee depicts a close-up view of an expanse of clover. The work is from a new series of smaller-scale works printed on a copper plate, which Thomas Demand began in 2025.

The material has deep roots in art history: In the fifteenth century, goldsmiths’ techniques of engraving precious metals were adapted to copper plates for the purpose of making reproducible prints, with etching on copper following in the sixteenth century. In the nineteenth century, copper also served as the support for the daguerreotype, the earliest commercially successful photographic process. It is therefore a material that engages with the histories of both painting and photography.