The Paper’s Summer arts issue: mass produced art

The 69,000th "limited edition" Mass-produced "art" squeezes artists, maximizes profits
BY MAUREEN HURLEY

DIAN SHULKIN points to the high edition number on Bev Doolittle's "Sacred Grounds."
GAIL PACKER explains the finer points of printmaking techniques in her Guerneville studio.

The scenario: You've joined the rank of thousands of would-be art investors and plunked your cash into a "limited edition" Salvador Dali print instead of sinking the money into your IRA account. A few years later you try to sell the print and no one will touch it, noteven the gallery that sold it to you, because it's not worth the paper it's printed on. Your only hope is to unload it on some other unsuspecting slob.

Many gallery owners, picture framers, and artists are grumbling over the current trend of arts consumers buying mass-produced "limited edition" lithographs instead of artist-produced fine-art prints or original art. They says that "limited edition" lithographs are hotter than Sonoma County real estate and middlemen hyping the value of lithographs are making an enormous profit off both the artist and the arts consumer. Artists get cheated out of a living wage and the arts consumer gets stuck with an expensive copy of real art.

People buy "limited edition" lithographs for a variety of reasons. One is the price. How many of us can afford to own a Chagall or a Dali painting? However, a Picasso or a Van Gogh lithograph can be had relatively cheaply. And many patrons think that is a good investment.

According to Dian Shulkin, owner of a framing services shop in Santa Rosa, "limited edition" lithographs came into popularity about 15-20 years ago. Frequently when an artist dies, a museum reissues a print—a glorified poster—usually with an inflated price Potential buyers are manipulated into believing a copy of the original is something of value. The artist (if alive) might receive some royalties but usually sells all rights to publishing company, which makes all the profit.

Magazine cover art

Dan Lienau of Annex Gallery in Santa Rosa, who's been selling prints to museums all over world for more than 20 years, said, "Lithography is a generic term. The cover of Time magazine is a lithograph. People confuse limited editions' lithographs with art. They have nothing to do with art."

Lienau sid, “As a framer, I’m flabbergasted. I can get customers major art works by major artists for less than what they paid for the 'limited edition' print," and, he added, when the customer wants to resell the so-called print, galleries and auction houses won’t touch them.

Galleries often "hype that  term—limited edition,'" said Shulkin. “I can divide Art into two categories: originals and copies. Lithographs aren't all bad—it's one way of bringing more art into the living rooms of the general populace. But so many people can come between an artist and the work." One hapless customer bought a $20 poster, thinking it was investment art, and ordered an $800 frame job to go with it, said Shulkin. "For $800, the customer could have owned the real McCoy.”

"It's a scam," said Lienau, citing artist Bev Doolittle, who is selling prints of "Sacred in a "limited edition" of 69,996. "I put 'limited edition' prints in with collecting bottle caps, matchbooks covers, and Hummel figurines,’ said Lienau. ‘We deal with collectors, not investors. Investors collect art to make money. A collector makes money to collect art.”

Watching for lemons

There seems to be confusion even in the field of "limited edition" galleries as to what a "limited edition" print is. Of the two galleries The Paper contacted who sell "limited edition" prints, one was very informative and quick to point out the differences between photo-reproduction posters, prints sign by the artists, and original prints.

The gallery owners said they made a point to educate their buyers and steer them away from a Bev Doolittle, for example because of the enormous numbers printed. The other gallery lumped all signed prints into the "limited edition" category. The fine-art print was defined as a classic print reproduced by offset (this paper is photo-offset) lithography.

Both agreed, the more artist contact with the work, the more valuable the piece— even though photo-offset signed prints often sell for more than serigraphs. Gallery number one advised me to be careful of what I bought.

Buying investment art—especially lithographs—can be like buying a used car, sight unseen, only to discover it was a lemon. With a little education, a prospective art buyer can avoid some of the pitfalls.

What is a print? An impression made from a plate, a screen, a stone, a block of wood, or even a potato. With silkscreens and serigraphs, the design is painted, stenciled, or photographed onto silk; with wood and linoleum blocks, the design is carved into the soft material. With engravings, etchings, and intaglio prints, the design is usually etched into a soft metal plate, usually copper. In fine-art lithography, the image is drawn or photo-transferred onto a steel plate or a stone. All involve artist handwork—and they're not machine made.

"Each print is slightly different—whether it's the heat or the coolness of the day or how each plate is wiped or wears down," according to award-winning intaglio printer Gail Packer of Guerneville. "The touch of the individual artist makes each print unique."

The specific offender is not the small-run series lithographs or etchings numbering from one to 300 prints produced by artists, but the enormous "limited edition" runs numbering in the thousands printed by companies using mechanical photographic offset techniques. (Hint: Look for a number in one corner: 150/300 means this is the 150th print out of 300 total copies. The work should be on high-quality cotton-rag archival paper, hand-signed, and numbered with low-number editions, preferably under 200.)

After the copies are printed, the plates are supposed to be destroyed. Then you truly have a limited edition. However, the term "limited lithography passes for sheep in wolves' clothing."Limited edition" lithographs are exactly alike—whether they're the 100th or the 50,000th print.

"Offset ink fades rapidly and the print is worthless in two years," said Lienau. Packer pointed out, "Each print looks the same. It looks good in a magazine—there you don’t want each copy to look different."

Aesthetic illiteracy

TV and magazines often advertise "limited edition" commemorative coins, plates, and dolls —collector's items as a hedge against inflation.

The nomenclature "limited edition" suggests there are few items for sale, when in reality tens of thousands are manufactured. And once they're sold, more can be made. There's no way to control how many are manufactured, so they lose their value.

Arts consultant Susan Richter, former executive director of the Cultural Arts Council of Sonoma County, said, "Mass-produced art is okay as long as you don't pay lots of money for it. We are aesthetically illiterate. Buying art for the name versus a local artist's work is a matter of not trusting our aesthetics."

Growled Forestville painter Frank Gannon, "People will say, 'Gee, I've got a Picasso or a Dali signed lithograph,' and the artist may have cranked out thousands of copies. Just because it might go up in value has nothing to do with its intrinsic value. You could find a painting in a gutter that had more feeling in it than some famous artist's signed print.”

Gail Packer added: "Dali just signed blank pieces of paper and handed them to the printer. That's it! He never saw the prints."

"I get calls literally every day from people who bought Dalis—my Daily Dali calls," said Dan Lienau. "There are over 1 million 'Dalis' out there. It's just an autograph."

Santa Rosa painter Jim Curtis said he moved into etchings because they're easier to sell than paintings.

It's a matter of diversification—whatever the market will support. Gail Packer's etchings are certainly a better buy than the "limited editions" selling in the county for upwards of $600. One can buy her work in a price range from $150 to $550 at Branscomb Gallery of Bodega Bay.

Art education

What’s the solution? Educate the arts consumer. Buy artist-produced prints. The image should be printed by the human being, not a machine. Buy from a reputable gallery. Find out how much money goes to the artist—it should be the lion's share.

Buy what you like—chances are, it won't appreciate in value anyway. "You should never buy a piece of art unless you love it, because you may be eating it for breakfast, literally.

The bottom line: Purchase art for the love of it or for its originality," said Shulkin. "Ninety percent of the art sold won't be worth anything in 30 years," predicted Timber Cove sculptor Bruce Johnson. His advice: "Ultimately it's best to buy what you like.”

Khysie Horn, owner of the Quicksilver Mine Co. gallery in Guerneville, said, ‘I’m more interested in original art. I don't have the wall space to put up lithographs. If I were to sell lithographs, I would hang the artist's original work on the wall and offer acetate-wrapped lithographs in a bin because the original art is something special. You're not going to find one of these at Macy's."

With "limited edition" lithographs, the artist makes very little profit. To cut out the middelmen means the artists have to market the product themselves, so it becomes hard to sell. Dian Shulkin mused, "In 1989, artists are not able to make a living wage off their original art.”

Artists should be busy making their art and not in the business of selling art." Said Shulkin, "Something is wrong when fine artists can't afford to eat. Culture is made up of art, and we should care enough about the role the artist plays.”