| Collecting fine art, including fine art prints can be a fun and rewarding experience. The fine art print market is a strong market currently according to statistics collected by Informart magazine, Artexpeditor and sales information from the auction houses including Sotheby's and Christie's. Although there are no guarantees when investing in a work of art that the art will increase in value over time, there are ways for a collector to invest wisely.
The Importance of Provenance
Van Gogh never made money as an artist, but his paintings were documented, both in his letters to his brother and others and also by his brother. Modern and contemporary artists who believe in themselves and their work begin to keep records of their work fairly quickly, or they find someone to do this for them, such as a gallery owner or dealer. Aside from problems caused by wars, looting, natural disasters and theft, the whereabouts of most valuable fine art is known. There are companies and web sites that keep records of fine art provenance that most dealers and galleries have access to for a fee. This includes prints. Following the trail of a work of fine art's ownership is termed provenance. Keeping records of the trail prevents forgery and also helps museums and curators know who to ask for a loan of art for a special exhibit as well as informing dealers and buyers as to whom to approach to buy particular works.
For artists whose work will appreciate over time, keeping records of provenance is very important. Good artists do care about their works, reputation and their collectors and agents. If a gallery, dealer or web site happily takes a buyer's credit card or cash and does not note down the buyer's information, print name and number (at least on a formal bill of sale), plus inform the buyer of the need to contact someone upon the work's changing hands, well, that says a whole lot about the seller's belief in the value of this art. This goes even triple for original paintings!
Artists and publishers know about the importance of this and keep records about their works when editions are created with respect for the real fine art market.
Judy Rey Wasserman and UnGraven Image provide a postcard addressed back to this studio, with every COA. On the postcard is written the identifying information about the print, its name and number and print edition. Below are spaces for the new owner's name, address and email. Written instructions are given about how to handle a change of ownership with every UnGraven Image print. With this writing it is also on our web site. The new owner and the previous owner are each then contacted with a brief letter acknowledging the new collector. This protects the first owner from any theft, fraud or forgery and also welcomes the new owner and places them on the special mailing list with benefits for collectors. Importantly for us, it allows UnGraven Image to keep records of provenance. Artists and dealers, who behave this way believe in their art.
Prints as an Investment
Many people have bought fine art as an investment and made money. Some people managed to get on the cutting edge, in at the very beginning with a new artist or a new movement and they made a lot of money. A dentist was recently listed in Art Review's 2005 list of the most prominent people in the art world. Why? Because two artists who traded their work when they were emerging artists for his dental care have become highly successful!
There are some other artists who many have paintings that are worth a lot of money, but really their print editions are so large that investing in them is plain silly. People who own those prints have no market for them and I have seen then sold for less than half of the original price on Ebay. Do not buy a fine art edition that has more than 700 prints in it, whether it is a reproduction print or an original print. Some artists and publishers try to get around that by calling editions of the same image by different edition names, such as Centennial Edition or Anniversary Edition. It should really be named the “Taking Advantage of Our Previous Collectors” edition.
Changing sizes is another way to hedge on the real number of prints. That one is tricky and something the buyer and the artist, even good, honest artists have to take care to research and properly represent. A good question to ask when considering purchasing any print is, “How many signed and numbered prints of this image are there in total?”
For Judy Rey Wasserman's larger paintings, for instance the Dock Less Traveled, there is a current edition of 200 on Epson's Ultra Fine Art paper, but will also have a larger edition on the same paper plus a canvas edition. Even though the other editions are not yet available, still the number of each edition plus the total number of 600 is clearly mentioned on the UnGraven Image web site where the prints are for sale. Also, the total number of prints issued for this image is clearly stated on literature about the print and painting. When collecting prints the buyer needs to check that the artist and publisher announce the total for each edition and stick to that number.
Sometimes posters for a specific event are also sold as fine art prints. Often some are signed by the artist. Usually the posters either commemorate an art show or are used to raise money for a charity or non-profit even. A true fine art poster should be published with archival media. Sometimes posters are just posters, and as such, cannot be relied on to last for generations, even with proper care. As with all editions, a limited edition is worth more for the collector than a similar quality work in an unlimited or larger edition.
Often fine art editions have a separate category called, “Artist's Proofs”. These groups of prints, which are always in relation to a print edition, never a stand alone edition are a remnant of the old tradition of the print publisher giving artists a small number of prints of any edition. Artists proofs were then sold by the artists themselves. They were thought to be more valuable since they were almost always signed and had been in he artist's very own hands. Also, they were usually amongst the earlier prints (thus they were proofs) so the image might be clearer and the lines or images finer. There was a time this term made sense.
In today's world of contemporary prints, the term “Artist Proof” is a marketing ploy to entice a buyer to pay more for the same item based on an often fictitious or at least scurrilous title. If a publisher offers “Artist's Proofs” for sale, then probably the item is not fine art in the first place. By definition the artist is the person selling the proofs, not the publisher! If the artist is the publisher, or hires the publisher then by definition, all of the prints are really Artist Proofs.
Prints or posters based on fine art images, which are not signed by the artist and/or are issued in large numbers or unlimited editions may be great decorations but are not fine art that anyone should collect and hope for an increase in value. For instance, currently there are lovely Giclee on canvas prints of Renoir's work. There are also posters of his work, some are even certified and in “fine art” editions by museums. The Boston Museum is selling beautiful archival prints. They are a great decoration, but they are not a great fine art investment.
This concludes a two part article. Part one is here |
