Johan de Zoete (*1950) is renowned as a graphic craftsman, and as a specialist on 19th century reproduction processes. Some of them, such as photogravure, photolithograpy and, together with professional photographer Jan van Dijk, the Woodburytype, were reconstructed by him in practice. He wrote extensively on the subject. From 1980 he was a guest-teacher at many art schools, for example in Berlin, Copenhague, Tampa (FL), Glasgow and Bath, and was lecturing at many universities.
For many years he gave masterclasses in recognizing old processes. From June 1996 until April 2016 he has been curator of the Museum Enschedé in Haarlem, The Netherlands. He was president of the Association of European Printing Museums for four years. From 2011 until 2020 he has been guest curator of the Special Collections of the Amsterdam University Library, where he was in charge of the technical graphic documentation. Until recently he ran a private press of his own: “The Rather Obscure Press of Johan de Zoete”.
Photomechanical processes 