Unravelling NZ artists called Frizzell

Dick Frizzell
Today we are going to help our readers differentiate their Frizzells! Confusion often arises about NZ artists carrrying the Frizzell name.  For instance because we stock all three different strands of Frizzell art prints at NZ Fine Prints we get asked questions like "Is Weston Frizzell the brother of Dick or Otis?".  Which is perfectly logical but not quite right!  

Here is the explanation. Dick Frizzell (1943 -       ) - shown here standing in front of some of his recent paintings (in what we suspect is also his favourite black and white striped top) has been one of NZ's most high profile and popular contemporary artists since the 1970s.  He continues to produce paintings and prints as well as recently designing artwork for The Great NZ Songbook project and even the 2011 Rugby World Cup to be held in NZ.

Otis Frizzell
Dick's son, Otis Frizzell (1971 -      ) - shown at right,  is now also a respected artist in his own right. Otis found his feet artistically with more than 20 years experience as a graffiti artist and has recently been producing some of NZ's most exciting contemporary prints - such as his tiki series - but many of Otis' prints are produced in collaboration with Mike Weston under the moniker "Weston Frizzell".

Weston Frizzell
Weston Frizzell (shown at left is a recent publicity shot of Mike & Otis with the official Weston Frizzell rubber stamp that appears on all their studio's work) is a collaborative pop art style studio whose slick work and tight production values have resulted in some of NZ's fastest selling print editions - buyers have snapped up entire editions such as "Tututables" in record time.  Like Otis Mike Weston occasionally completes  solo art projects that are not under the Weston Frizzell studio.

2 comments:

  1. Can you help clarify something for me? Two years ago, a friend of mine was visiting me from New Zealand, and brought me a numbered print 5/50 of the famous MIckey to Tiki Tu Meke print. More recently, ( January of this year) my daughter purchased a similar print while she was traveling in NZ. We were shocked to note that her print and mine are IDENTICAL- including the 5/50 number!!

    My NZ friend made a point of telling me the print was “valuable” since it was a numbered original.. It seems to me that one or both of the numbered prints are invalid. Perhaps you should look into what appears to be a possible deception.

    Any information you can send me would be most appreciated.

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  2. @Philip Both prints are reproductions of the 5/50 lithograph that is held in a public gallery collection in NZ. Unfortunately the artist wanted the integrity of the original print maintained so the artwork was reproduced in its entirety (including the edition number and artist's signature rather than manipulating the image digitally to remove the signature and edition number.  As in the case of your friend this has certainly led to some confusion about whether the reproduction is actually a Dick Frizzell signed edition, particularly when Mickey to Tiki has been framed.

    When Mickey to Tiki is purchased from New Zealand Fine Prints we emphasise in our catalogue listing that "this print is a superb fine art reproduction" and it is also clearly advertised at less than one tenth of the price of an original print by the same artist.

    I trust this clarifies the issue for you and I hope that your friend will not be too disappointed that their gift was not quite as valuable as they thought it was!

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