Giclée is a term created by printmaker Jack Duganne in 1991 to refer to a digitally-reproduced fine art print. Giclée is based on the French verb “gicleur” the French technical term for an inkjet nozzle. The French verb form “gicler” which meant to squirt or spray a liquid, but Mr. Duganne appropriated the noun, “giclée”, meaning “the thing that got sprayed” to describe the type of prints his studio was making on large format printers at the time. Giclée has since then come to mean any high resolution inkjet print produced on large format printers from a digitally generated file.

Giclée printing is a process that uses fade-resistant, archival inks and archival substrates to print on large format printers. Giclée printing is often used by artists to make reproductions of their original two-dimensional artwork, photographs or computer-generated art for resale while preserving the original.