Digital BW, The Print

Thanks for posting the interesting observations. 

I especially liked your comment on the editions.  Too few and no one sees it.  How many is too much?  

How about the "limited edition prints" that people buy like crazy nowadays...they generally come in editions of 1200 or so...the low limit of offset printers of fine art REPRODUCTIONS...you know..the "Painter of Light" whats his name...Thomas something...(grin) who by the way has sold millions of dollars of limited edition prints and is very successful "commercially."

Steadman.    

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: lyonscox@... 
  To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 6:54 PM
  Subject: [Digital BW] A note on Gallery Rules or editions


  I've had some interesting conversations about editions and gallery 
  rules.

  Regarding Existing Work.
  Was talking with a curator at the Getty once about Edward Weston's 
  work.  How many Pepper #30's are there?  There are # of known prints 
  and I immediately threw out 3x that number as a reasonable possible 
  number of images that could come to light in the next 50 years.

  A parallel.  Collectors of 35mm cameras can still find amazing things 
  because the first generation of buyers can still be in possession of 
  them.  It seems reasonable that many things pass through two hands, 
  if not two generations, before they come to the light of a 
  museum/collector.

  Regarding Editions.
  How many is enough?  Unless you sell work, an edition is 
  meaningless.  An edition is meaningless if it isn't fully produced.  
  An edition is meaningless if it keeps your work so rare that people 
  can't see it, now, or 200 years from now.  Vermeer might be the 
  exception but it took several hundred years to grab the populations 
  interest at large.

  Seems a lot of early 20th Century art, I'm thinking German 
  Expressionists in particular, had editions upwards of 100.  Enough 
  for people to see them in a number of museums around the world.  
  Enough so they get published.  Still not enough to have saturated 
  collections around the world.

  Regarding Descriptions of artwork.
  This is an outgrowth of curatorial work.  The need to describe 
  something in words so it can be recognized when pulled out of the box 
  (& match the accession#).  Computer assisted art, printed through 
  inkjet printers is not a lot different than woodblock, etching, 
  lithography, or photography.  All of these processes were new at the 
  time, many were UTILIZED by artists for traits they showed to 
  advantage.  This, sometime after the commercial world had it long 
  enough for artists to get access to.

  Cleavis in AZ



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Cleavis,
Well put...the original concept with editioning dry point etchings was that the best prints came from the
first 'pulls' and as the plate wore down, they got lower in quality.  I think, but am not positive, that 100
was the upper limit (of high quality prints) that a non steel coated copper plate could produce....Hence the
original  edition size of 100.

These days, editioning (that is limiting editions) is purely a marketing ploy.  And as your Weston Pepper #40
example clearly shows, limiting the size of editions does not finally, add to the value...Pepper #40 regularly
sells for the most money at auction, and it is also probably the largest edition of any of Weston's images.

Harvey Ferdschneider
partner, SKID Photography, NYC

lyonscox@... wrote:

> I've had some interesting conversations about editions and gallery
> rules.
>
> Regarding Existing Work.
> Was talking with a curator at the Getty once about Edward Weston's
> work.  How many Pepper #30's are there?  There are # of known prints
> and I immediately threw out 3x that number as a reasonable possible
> number of images that could come to light in the next 50 years.
>
> A parallel.  Collectors of 35mm cameras can still find amazing things
> because the first generation of buyers can still be in possession of
> them.  It seems reasonable that many things pass through two hands,
> if not two generations, before they come to the light of a
> museum/collector.
>
> Regarding Editions.
> How many is enough?  Unless you sell work, an edition is
> meaningless.  An edition is meaningless if it isn't fully produced.
> An edition is meaningless if it keeps your work so rare that people
> can't see it, now, or 200 years from now.  Vermeer might be the
> exception but it took several hundred years to grab the populations
> interest at large.
>
> Seems a lot of early 20th Century art, I'm thinking German
> Expressionists in particular, had editions upwards of 100.  Enough
> for people to see them in a number of museums around the world.
> Enough so they get published.  Still not enough to have saturated
> collections around the world.
>
> Regarding Descriptions of artwork.
> This is an outgrowth of curatorial work.  The need to describe
> something in words so it can be recognized when pulled out of the box
> (& match the accession#).  Computer assisted art, printed through
> inkjet printers is not a lot different than woodblock, etching,
> lithography, or photography.  All of these processes were new at the
> time, many were UTILIZED by artists for traits they showed to
> advantage.  This, sometime after the commercial world had it long
> enough for artists to get access to.
>
> c in AZ


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]