Glimpse of NZ Fine Prints 2018 catalogue - (artists "A"...)
This was going to be called the New Zealand Fine Prints "50th Anniversary" catalogue but we chickened out due to our anniversary actually being last year and eagle eyed observers might think our catalogue was already out of date.
We already have to print enough catalogues to last a couple of years (we send them out to both our very large mailing list (mail order is still a great channel for us) and include one with every purchase).
Deciding which artworks to include is a huge exercise.
Our paper catalogues don't have to be the sourcebook for every print, poster and limited edition print available from a NZ artist these days - this is the job of our online catalogue at prints.co.nz. However a physical catalogue is a great showcase to let you all know about new prints and artists who have published/created prints recently as well as an easy way to show what we do for customers who are hearing about us for the first time.
Putting together a new catalogue is not easy production wise, we have to get all the details of every print right as well as to try not to include too many editions that will sell out while the catalogue is current. That's before we wrangle hundreds of images into order without mixing them up, or, in one memorable case - printing a Doris Lusk painting upside down without noticing!
It also seems that as soon as the catalogues come back from the printers our catalogue manager gets a tonne of wondrous submissions of new work that we wished we could have included!
Our catalogue is now signed off and should be printed by the end of this week, it's a heady mix of fresh ink in the office when the pile of boxes are delivered and so exciting for us when the first sales of never before seen prints start coming in.
You can download your own (7mb) final draft of the NZ Fine Prints 2018 catalogue here - and look out for the paper version in a letterbox near you soon!
The printmaker Greg Straight working on his new edition
Catching Rays, a new limited edition print by NZ printmaker Greg Straight, encapsulates just about everything we like to see in a contemporary print by a New Zealand artist.
It's technically proficient, printed with great attention to detail, it has crisp lines and dense colour.
The artwork is large scale (it's on a full A1 sheet) and in a small edition (just 25 prints).
It depicts something unique to NZ in with a creative and distinctive artistic voice that is both thoughtful and decorative. The design on the rays wings may at first glance appear to be just a riff on classic Maori motifs but there is definitely something bat(man) like about the patterns on a second look.
Checking colours of the artist's proof
Catching Rays is also great value, you are buying a very large handmade print by a popular artist for just $300.
We also love the subject, New Zealand's sea creatures like sting rays haven't had as much exposure in contemporary art (compare the vast range that is available to buy in the ever popular native birds and native plants collections) but they deserve to be celebrated by our artists to the same degree.
Greg with his print "Catching Rays"
(available to buy here)
Artist/illustrator Giselle Clarkson whose "Fish Species of NZ" print came out a couple of years ago is another artist whose interest in depicting NZ's sea creatures is making us wonder if a new kiwi wall art trend is stirring.
Not all contemporary non fine art is street art. But there is a subtle change afoot when artists who have moved from Pop to Street to Urban Art like Brad Novak bring out new prints that have built on this progressive foundation to create something new. Brad's new series under the moniker "New Blood Pop" takes iconography familiar to New Zealanders but not exclusive to us and shows these historical and cultural figures in a new light.
This is what Brad has to say about his remix of pop in a more urban art direction. “New Blood Pop is concerned with how we experience life itself, the 21st century issues we face such as inequalities in wealth and health, sustainability and globalization. I’m also interested in the idea of escapism especially through science fiction and the superhero franchise. Of the things we choose to believe, what’s real, and what’s not? These works are global, flagrant, iconic and ironic.
I endeavour to create powerful multi-layered works, with an emblazoned foreground overlaying a “veiled” background, to show that many of us are living life through a distorting veil, clouding our perception. Our awareness tainted by biases and judgments – a fantasy that we’ve created for ourselves – the practice of mindfulness promises salvation.”
We stock the new series of prints under Brad's moniker “New Blood Pop”, or “NBP76”, all these new prints are hand-collaged and stencil-spray-painted artworks which involve the layering of popular imagery like the Princess Leia portrait shown here which is for sale at $695, available in an edition of just 35 signed and numbered screenprints.
Hansen's two new limited edition prints make a compelling pair. Both prints are semi-autobiographical, referencing the different strands of Hansen's genealogy, the Maori and the Chinese. These artworks are about coming to terms with your cultural background, making sense of your ancestry.
Pania is a recurring character in Shane's work, in "Pania and the Dragon" she
is depicted feeding a dragon from a bottle. A poem accompanies the print
Oh bless the little girl who sits and feeds the little dragon
Does she not see the danger?
Look at his large toothy grin, his big greedy eyes
He will drink all her milk if she’s not careful
Why does she smile so?
What does she know that I don’t know?
Oh bless the little girl who sits and feeds the little dragon
Home Sweet Home is nostalgic but not sentimental, Shane says "No matter
Home Sweet Home Edition of 50 prints
where we come from, what our heritage, we all have a place that is our ancestral home. Our distance, be it physical or emotional, holds no barriers, as all are welcome when the time comes to reconnect. This place, warmed by those who came before and those whom have kept the fires burning, waiting for our return. Home Sweet Home."
Both prints are in editions of fifty screenprints, individually lovely but we also think these look great as a pair of prints on the wall alongside each other. Superb decoration for children's rooms that will become increasingly meaningful as they grow up alongside them.
Shane Hansen is one of NZ's most widely known contemporary Maori artists. He has accepted commissions from high profile clients such as Maori Television, Air New Zealand and his artwork adorns the New Zealand Tourism head office in Auckland. He has even followed in the footsteps of Andy Warhol with an art car project for BMW!
But he is uneasy about the popularity of a genre known as "Maori Art" in a way that is in some ways similar to our misgivings about the re-branding of non-Maori New Zealand art as "kiwiana".
Hansen's new print of a Maori Ronald McDonald figure is his expression of this questioning of the balance between commercialisation and celebration of Maori art by artists like himself.
Shane Hansen at work in his Auckland studio
McRangi (pictured above) is a much looser artwork than his usual crisp style based on what Hansen describes as an "old school image of Ronald waving that had a creepy nostalgic feeling about it". In this print McRangi asks in Te Reo "Ko tenei taku titiro kite ao whanui? - "is this how I see the world?". Hansen is wondering if his artworks are cheapening Maori culture or exposing it and communicating it to others in a good way.
We don't think that Hansen has anything to worry about as his thoughtful and original series of prints push the boundaries of New Zealand art forward, refreshing and re-interpreting as well as adding a completely new style that is completely his own. But even if there is a less vivid expression of "Maori art" being produced in the gift/souvenir market to meet the current demand that could be seen, as Hansen puts it, to be "cheapening" Maori culture is this anything new?
If an interior designer gave us the brief to decorate an entire building to showcase the best of what we stock BUT we were only allowed to use the prints of a single NZ artist - right now we'd recommend the superb range of prints by NZ painter, printmaker and composer Michael Smither.
Michael Smither with print
Printmaking is central to his artistic practice, we are sure that it is in his blood because we have been told that Smither's father was also able to screenprint!
Stones in Blue Bottle | Screenprint | Ed. 71
Shown here are a couple of our favourite Michael Smither prints. In particular we love the "Stones in a Blue Bottle" print because it brings the iconic Smither rockpool study indoors, a “still life with rock pools” and the "Coral Head with Fish" print because the depth of the image is astonishing and this print looks truly amazing with the right kind of lighting at night. These are the kinds of prints that stop people in their tracks to check them out even if they have no idea who the printmaker is because they are just magnificent in both ideas and execution.
Coral Head with Fish | Limited Edition Screenprint
We have just about completed the task of cataloguing all the prints that are currently still available from editions created by Smither from an entire lifetime of printmaking. Alongside Dick Frizzell this is one of the most significant and large bodies of work currently available to collectors of NZ prints and yes - in answer to another common question - it's Michael Smither prints that we have on the walls at home, he's definitely very well represented in our own personal collections.
In this article we’ll discuss where the real value long term actually lies in buying new prints that are sold as “limited edition”.
It's exciting that the monetary value of vintage posters, antique prints and editions by twentieth century NZ printmakers is being increasingly recognised by the wider art market. When rare NZ prints are being sold for tens of thousands of dollars those of us who bristle at hearing the phrase “it’s just a print” allow ourselves a tingle of satisfaction at collecting an artistic medium that had managed to remain wonderfully under-rated (ie cheap) for so long…
Essentially the fact a print is advertised as being a "limited edition" is not necessarily an indication of its long term value because limited edition prints come in two sorts.
1. The first kind of limited edition print is a reproduction of another artwork.
2. The second kind of limited edition print is a multiple original where the print is the end result of an artistic process, there is no other “original” artwork.
Limited edition reproduction of a painting by Brian Dahlberg
A limited edition reproduction can be a copy of an antique print (for instance the series of early prints of NZ published by Avon Fine Prints in the 1960s and 1970s) or a copy of a painting (for example this image from a collection of prints by contemporary Auckland painter Brian Dahlberg). A reproduction print can be printed offset (photolithography) or digitally (inkjet or giclee) but all are copies of another artwork.
Reproduction prints can be of astonishingly fine quality today, often printed on canvas and even in three dimensions including the frame - see the video demonstrating Canon's version of this latest technology that has not yet arrived in New Zealand...
The price a print buyer pays is often higher for a digital print which unless outrageously excessive can usually be justified by the higher costs involved compared to printing offset and the fact the buyer is receiving a superior quality print in return. Although the capital costs of owning digital printers have fallen dramatically especially given the recent strength of the NZ dollar there will never be the same economies of scale that you had with photolithography when you are printing in very short runs.
However in our view the high prices that were asked for reproduction prints printed using digital technology when the giclee revolution arrived in NZ a decade ago has led to confusion about the value of giclee reproduction prints today.
This period saw giclee reproduction prints of scenic NZ oil paintings being marketed at over a thousand dollars each, this pushed them up to the same pricepoint as editions from printmakers but in most cases without making the artists a lot of money because the cost structure to get them to market was so high. But critically this higher cost structure created an lingering expectation that because a higher price was paid for the print it would have to have some kind of long term value, an expectation that a print buyer must be purchasing something with a value that would endure beyond the decorative appeal of the print.
This initial high pricing was the result of the following combination of factors. The small size of the NZ market, the high cost of materials (inks and substrates), the fact there is no reduction in unit cost for multiple prints being printed at once (not economies of scale unlike photolithography), small numbers of prints being printed at once meant artists were effectively paying retail prices for their printing requirements and the fact that giclee prints were marked up galleries and other retailers by the same amount as offset reproduction prints rather than the smaller margin on what had been the previously more expensive prints, the original editions.
However the price you pay for a print is not always a good indication of its long term value.
We think that a limited edition reproduction print offers extra value for the print buyer if it is signed and numbered by the artist because there is value in knowing that your new artwork is not going to be seen everywhere (scarcity as well as decorative value). There is also a value in the actual signature of the artist - after all people buy autographs by themselves. The most valuable reproduction print in New Zealand are the signed versions of the 1920s era print of C.F. Goldie's "A Good Joke", valuing his signature at around $1000. For a contemporary NZ artist like Dick Frizzell his signature being added to an artwork is probably worth around $100, for example on the exhibition poster for the Blockbusters show we have for sale at the moment.
However for serious collectors a reproduction of another artwork is not going to hold its value as well as an original work of art - or in the case of prints, a multiple original.
"Scarcity and decorative value are weak factors in the secondary market when compared to an artwork with intrinsic skill and creativity that also has that magical resonance with art buyers that endures across more than one generation."
We try and make sure that in our marketing of a reproduction print that we stress the value to the buyer in the amazing quality, colour fidelity, large size and longevity of the inks offered in a modern print rather than a mysterious "collectable value". Print buyers of previous decades would have happily paid more for a print that won't fade for decades and looks just like the original painting, but even at a higher price these are still reproduction prints, not original editions, even if both categories of prints can truthfully be called "limited editions".
