ART TIP OF THE WEEK

PRINTS VS. REPRODUCTIONS

One of the most devastating things that can happen to a person who wants to start collecting and decorating with art is to discover that the "print" they bought from that nice gallery is only a cheap copy of an original painting.

We get calls all the time from people wanting to sell their "original, limited edition prints" by any number of "famous artists". My favorite quotes are "Bill Gates owns one", We can have a Master Highlighter accent your piece…" and of course, "This is an original print".

Remember the big-eyed kids of the 70's? Those were collector's items also. Gee, I can't remember seeing any of those last time I was at MOMA and I don't see them advertised for sale???

Be aware of what you are buying. I have a few rules that I give clients to help them make smart purchases:

NEVER buy ANY "print" with TWO signatures!!!!!!! This means, Never buy a "print" with two signatures!!! Understand that if the work is signed once, then photographed, reproduced as a photo litho, giclee', Borland, or any of the numerous reproduction methods, and the signed again, IT IS NOT A PRINT!!!

Never buy a "painting" that is a copy of a photograph of a painting! These Giclee "paintings" that are done on canvas (usually the cheapest grade duck canvas available) and the "highlighted by the master highlighter, are worth the price of the canvas they are printed on. They are not paintings, they are copies that are textured by putting acrylic gel with small amounts of pigment over them in brush strokes that are supposed to fool you in to believing time and thought went into the process. Picture if you will 10 migrant workers sitting at a table with a conveyer belt, putting brush loads of different color gels on the copies as they move down the line, blue, yellow, white, until the our happy little painting is all done….. It is then sold to some poor sap that is told by the gallery that it is worth something.

Look closely at the edition numbers . Ask yourself  "could someone hand-pull 2500 prints??? A real, hand-pulled print may have 10/300, 20/25, 1/50, or AP,
(The first number is the number of that print, the second number tells how many prints were done, AP stands for Artist's Proof, the standard by which the others are judged.) but 350/2500??? I saw a Bev Dosomething that was numbered 2400/25,000. I somehow can't imagine hand pulling that many prints from a plate and re-inking each time.

 There are exceptions, such cases as master printers editioning a print for the artists, in which case the artwork is done by the artists and then turned over for printing. The artist still creates the image and prepares the plate and the printer prints it, it is not photographed or scanned, then copied.

 Do not be impressed if the gallery has dimmer switches. They are cheap. If you are basing your purchase of art on what it looks like under "special" light, buy it, you deserve it!

This site: http://www.moma.org/whatisaprint/print.html , is the best I have seen for explaining what the different types of prints are.

Just remember, educate yourself before you buy anything.