Geoffroy Gournet is a European-trained master engraver. He was born in France and moved the United States in 1985. In 1987 he became the official and sole engraver at Parker Reproductions, engraving the A1 Special. [1]
Geoffroy Gournet began his training in Belgium. He attended the Belgian School of Gunsmithing in Liège, where he was awarded The First Prize of Basculage (Gunsmithing) for his work. He learned the techniques of gunsmithing under the guidance of Ernest Dumoulin. He also earned the First prize at Liège's School of Engraving. [2]
From Belgium he continued his training in Gardone Val Trompia where he spent time in different workshops with such masters as Ceasare Giovanelli and Gianfranco Pedersoli. During his stay in Italy he met the Master Julio Timpini, from Beretta, Giacomo Fausti and Giovanni Steduto both now of Creative Art. Geoffroy Gournet was so eager to master all the techniques of bulino that he spents 7 days a week practicing. [3] Phil Coggan and Gary Merle were also students there at the same time as Geoffroy.
Once Geoffroy Gournet had mastered engraving he moved to Virginia to be an artist-in-residence. In 1987, Geoffroy met Tom Skeuse Sr. the father of “Parker Reproduction”. Geoffroy became the sole and full-time engraver at Parker Reproduction. He worked exclusively on the A1 Special shotguns creating one of a kind masterpieces. [4] He embellished the A1 Special shotguns with everything from English scrolls to gold inlay to theater masks to farms scenes to wonderfully detailed hunting scenes. He worked for the New Jersey based company from 1987 until 2002. [5]
Since 2002, he has dedicated himself entirely to private customers; engraving shotguns, knives, jewelry, and other engravables. He lives in Easton, PA, an hour and a half from New York City, roughly 65 miles. [6]
Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing images on paper as prints or illustrations; these images are also called "engravings". Engraving is one of the oldest and most important techniques in printmaking. Wood engraving is a form of relief printing and is not covered in this article.
A gunsmith is a person who repairs, modifies, designs, or builds guns. The occupation differs from an armorer, who usually replaces only worn parts in standard firearms. Gunsmiths do modifications and changes to a firearm that may require a very high level of craftsmanship, requiring the skills of a top-level machinist, a very skilled woodworker, and even an engineer. Gunsmiths perform factory-level repairs and renovations to restore a well-used or deteriorated firearms to new condition. They may make alterations to adapt sporting guns to better fit the individual shooter that may require extensive modifications to the firearm's stocks and metal parts. Repairs and redesigns may require fabrication and fitting of unavailable parts and assemblies constructed by smiths themselves. Gunsmiths may also renew metal finishes or apply decorative carvings or engravings to guns. Many gun shops offer gunsmithing service on the premises.
Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image or matrix of images into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and prints using relatively low pressure. By contrast, ordinary engraving, like etching, uses a metal plate for the matrix, and is printed by the intaglio method, where the ink fills the valleys, the removed areas. As a result, wood engravings deteriorate less quickly than copper-plate engravings, and have a distinctive white-on-black character.
Marcantonio Raimondi, often called simply Marcantonio, was an Italian engraver, known for being the first important printmaker whose body of work consists largely of prints copying paintings. He is therefore a key figure in the rise of the reproductive print. He also systematized a technique of engraving that became dominant in Italy and elsewhere. His collaboration with Raphael greatly helped his career, and he continued to exploit Raphael's works after the painter's death in 1520, playing a large part in spreading High Renaissance styles across Europe. Much of the biographical information we have comes from his life, the only one of a printmaker, in Vasari's Lives of the Artists.
Jerry Charles Miculek Jr. is an American professional speed and competition shooter known for his many world records, appearances on TV, and internet videos. Miculek is widely regarded as the fastest and most proficient all-around speed and competition shooter in the world, emptying a five-shot revolver in 0.57 seconds in a group the size of a playing card, thus often being dubbed "The Greatest Shooter of all Time". Miculek currently holds five officially sanctioned world records in revolver shooting and over 15 unsanctioned records with firearms ranging from rapid firing pistols to the Barrett M107 .50 BMG rifle. Additional accomplishments include six shots in .98 seconds with a Barrett M107 .50 BMG rifle and a 1000-yard shot off hand with his signature 9mm Smith & Wesson revolver.
The Remington 1100 is a gas-operated semi-automatic shotgun, popular among sportsmen. First introduced by Remington Arms in 1963, it remains in contemporary production, 58 years later.
Line engraving is a term for engraved images printed on paper to be used as prints or illustrations. The term is mainly used in connection with 18th or 19th century commercial illustrations for magazines and books or reproductions of paintings. It is not a technical term in printmaking, and can cover a variety of techniques, giving similar results.
Firearm modification is commonly done in order to enhance various aspects of the performance of a firearm. Reasons for these modifications can range from cosmetic to functional, and can be simple operations that the owner can perform, or complex operations requiring the services of a gunsmith.
Theodor de Bry was an engraver, goldsmith, editor and publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. The Spanish Inquisition forced de Bry, a Protestant, to flee his native, Spanish-controlled Southern Netherlands. He moved around Europe, starting from his birth on the city of Liège in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, then to Strasbourg, Antwerp, London and Frankfurt, where he settled.
Daniel Myron Lefever was an American gun maker, popularly known as "Uncle Dan Lefever". He is best known as the inventor of the hammerless shotgun, first introduced in 1878.
An old master print is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition. The term remains current in the art trade, and there is no easy alternative in English to distinguish the works of "fine art" produced in printmaking from the vast range of decorative, utilitarian and popular prints that grew rapidly alongside the artistic print from the 15th century onwards. Fifteenth-century prints are sufficiently rare that they are classed as old master prints even if they are of crude or merely workmanlike artistic quality. A date of about 1830 is usually taken as marking the end of the period whose prints are covered by this term.
Perazzi is a manufacturer of precision shotguns from Brescia, Italy. The company sells hunting and sporting models of shotguns noted for their removable trigger groups, high quality, and high prices (US$7,500–440,000). Its founder is Daniele Perazzi, and his family owns and operates it.
Raphaël Augustinus Kleweta was an engraver, artist, and art book publisher setting up Anima Mundi Publishing Group, France.
Edmund Evans was an English wood-engraver and colour printer during the Victorian era. Evans specialized in full-colour printing, which, in part because of his work, became popular in the mid-19th century. He employed and collaborated with illustrators such as Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway and Richard Doyle to produce what are now considered to be classic children's books. Although little is known about his life, he wrote a short autobiography before his death in 1905 in which he described his life as a printer in Victorian London.
Boetius à Bolswert was a renowned copper-plate engraving engraver of Friesland origin. In his time the paintings of Peter Paul Rubens called forth new endeavours by engravers to imitate or reproduce the breadth, density of mass and dynamic illumination of those works. Boetius Bolswert was an important figure in this movement, not least because he was the elder brother and instructor of the engraver Schelte à Bolswert, whose reproductions of Rubens's landscapes were most highly esteemed in their own right.
FAMARS, or Fabbrica Armi d’Abbiatico e Salvinelli, is an Italian gunmaker that manufactures bespoke shotguns and rifles. The company is best known for its patented detachable-lock designs and handcrafted woodwork and engraving. FAMARS is considered a top Italian best gun manufacturer.
The Ruger Red Label was an over and under shotgun that was built by Sturm, Ruger & Co. at the direction of William B. Ruger.
Françoise Taylor was a Belgian/British artist.
Gilles Demarteau or Gilles Demarteau the Elder was an etcher, engraver and publisher who was active in Paris for his entire career. He is one of the persons to whom has been attributed the invention of the crayon manner of engraving. He is recognized as playing an important role in the development of this engraving technique. He was one of the key reproductive engravers and publishers of the work of François Boucher.