The first print made by Pierre Soulages dates from 1952 and may not have been made at all had a chance event not taken place one year earlier.

Madeleine Lacourière, of the Lacourière printing workshop, had been walking past the window of Galerie Carré in Paris where Soulages had a painting in an exhibition. She tracked the artist down and asked him to work with their studio on two editions, a proposal which Soulages was initially reluctant to consider because he knew nothing about any printmaking process. Mme Lacourière was not easily dissuaded however and continued to charm the artist until he agreed to her suggestion. “If you are pleased with the results”, she told him, “we will publish the prints. If it doesn’t work out, it will just be a little wasted time for both of us.” The Lacourières put their studio at Soulages’ disposal and taught him the basic principles of etching and aquatint.

The two prints from that early time were so-called interpretation prints, etchings in colour that were based on two of his existing paintings. Although the prints were quite beautiful, 5 years passed before Soulages would again attempt to make any more. The first two works had not satisfied his need to create, which he held as a necessary value in whichever medium he chose. Making versions of images he had already created was not what he wanted to do. In 1957 he returned to Lacourière to learn more but also visited and worked with Mourlot, who was Picasso’s printer, to open himself to a variety of teaching. One day in Lacourière’s studio Soulages made an accidental discovery which changed his outlook entirely

Soulages extended this practice by removing parts of the copper plate so that it no longer had a rectangular border, "Why should a rectangular sheet of paper still be printed with a rectangle?" For some prints the artist would use more than his own bodyweight in acid to achieve the depth of ink saturation he strived for, in his words “provoking the material, bringing out surprises, unforeseen events, taking risks and seizing chances.” In this way his printmaking kept pace with his painting practice which was, after all, a long journey towards black.

Working in this way became a source of great satisfaction for Soulages, who had finally found how to make prints in the way he approached his paintings, creating material form and colour at the same time. Soulages worked also in lithograph and in silkscreen, and in each medium he managed to deviate from the normal established practices, seizing on chance effects and developing them in ways that had not been previously explored. He would work directly on printed proofs, adjusting them before printing them again, constantly developing his imagery and increasing the scale of the sheets on which he worked.