KLÍČ, Karel

K. attended secondary non-classical school in Prague and then studied painting at the Academy of fine arts. In 1863 he opened his own lithography workshop in Prague. In 1864 the family moved to Brno, where K. opened his photographic studio »Rafael«, which he later left to his father, while he published the newspaper called Veselé listy. K. was increasingly concerned with caricatures, which he also draw for the Budapest newspaper Borsszem Jankó. In 1869 he moved to Vienna, where he participated in the humorous magazine Der Floh, and later published his own newspaper Humoristischen Blätter. In addition, K. was a highly sought portraitist.
K's interest was directed towards the problems facing quality press, especially semi-tone printing process, which was then a major and unsolvable problem. K. in greater detail dealt with method of etching printing plates and worked together with Jakub Husnik, who was from 1873 to 1875 consultant for securities printing in the State printing works in Vienna.
Apart from printing on paper, K. also dealt with the improvement of paper printing at textiles factory in Neunkirchn (Lower Austria), and later in Josefův Důl in Kosmonosy (Czech Republic). When Pisani on 1st January, 1879 printed quality reproductions on the printing plate, previously prepared in a new way by K., the photogravure was invented – a technique that allowed semi-tone printing, in quality which could not be achieved until then and was therefore rapidly spread.
K. was also concerned with the textile printing rotogravure. Knowing this principle, combined with photogravure led him to the development of the paper printing tehnique which resulted from these two bases, i.e. to the invention of copper intaglio printing process (1890). He worked together with Storey brothers and Lancester in England. The company „Rembrandt Intaglio Printing Ltd.“ was founded by the Storey brothers in Lancaster with K. as technical manager to further develop the procedure for rotary printing. Later he became its co-owner.
Rotogravure spread widely from 1910 on with the production of high quality book illustrations and newspapers containing pictures. It was possible to achieve top-quality prints with the use of bent rotary printing, which was in 1992 used for the last time in a Prague printing office. Rotating machinery for rotogravure printing is still used for printing the large number of newspapers copies, colour supplements for daily newspapers and advertising leaflets.