A state, in printmaking, is a different form of a print, caused by a deliberate and permanent change to a matrix such as a copper plate (for engravings etc) or woodblock (for woodcut).

Artists often take prints from a plate (or block, etc.) and then do further work on the plate before printing more impressions (copies). Sometimes two states may be printed on the same day, sometimes several years may elapse between them.

States are usually numbered in Roman numerals: I, II, III... , and often as e.g.: "I/III", to indicate the first of three recorded states. Some recent scholars refine the work of their predecessors, without wishing to create a confusing new numbering, by identifying states like "IIa","IVb" and so forth. A print with no different states known is catalogued as "only state".

Most authorities do not count accidental damage to a plate – usually scratches on a metal plate or cracks in a woodcut block – as constituting different states, partly because scratches can disappear again after being printed a number of times.

State commonly refers to either the present condition of a system or entity, or to a governed entity (such as a country) or sub-entity (such as a province or region).

William Kentridge (born 28 April 1955) is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films. These are constructed by filming a drawing, making erasures and changes, and filming it again. He continues this process meticulously, giving each change to the drawing a quarter of a second to two seconds' screen time. A single drawing will be altered and filmed this way until the end of a scene. These palimpsest-like drawings are later displayed along with the films as finished pieces of art.

Kentridge was born in Johannesburg, and educated at King Edward VII School in Houghton, Johannesburg. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Politics and African Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand and then a diploma in Fine Arts from the Johannesburg Art Foundation. In the early 1980s, he studied mime and theatre at the L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris. He originally hoped to become an actor, but he reflected later: "I was fortunate to discover at a theatre school that I was so bad an actor [... that] I was reduced to an artist, and I made my peace with it.". Between 1975 and 1991, he was acting and directing in Johannesburg's Junction Avenue Theatre Company. In the 1980s, he worked on television films and series as art director. His father, Sydney Kentridge, is a prominent lawyer who took on civil rights cases against apartheid.