Gardening & artists who garden | NZ Fine Prints

For some people gardening is a chore, for others it is a sandpit for adults. 

The Garden by Barry Ross Smith

The intersection between human habitation and our natural environment is where the intrinsic beauty of plants meets our unique among animals impulse to re-order what nature has created in what appears to us to be a more aesthetically pleasing (and productive) way.  

Detail of Lazy Bones & the Pleasure Garden by Hamish Allan

It is fair bet that those of us who have been bitten by the gardening bug might also want to bring the outdoors inside when it comes to art, decorating our walls with botanical posters for instance. And it is not too far of a stretch to imagine these flora fans are also buying prints of birds in such vast numbers over the past few years as we celebrate the fact that native birds of NZ are being seen in increasing numbers within the gardens of our towns and cities thanks to both pest eradication but also the deliberate creation of habitat in domestic and public gardens.

Japanese artist Hiroshige, the epitome of gardens as art

But as part of a small campaign to exercise our print buyer's more whimsical choices (he jokes that sometimes he can't resist buying what he thinks people should want rather than what they actually do) we have dipped our toes into offering a new collection of wall art - prints of gardens and gardening (we have also allowed him to buy a large range of retro/vintage music and film posters) but he will now be back on the straight and narrow for the next
few months!

Backyard Incinerator by Dick Frizzell 

There are artists who garden,
most famously Claude Monet whose garden at Giverny was, as we would say these days, part of his practice. But local kiwi painters like Jeanette Blackburn are almost as well-known for their garden art galleries as for their work. And then we have Hamish Allan's carefully composed renditions of what could only be a New Zealand backyard, Dick Frizzell's "backyard" series like his prints of lawn mowers and the incinerator pictured here - and then the doyen of NZ garden painters Karl Maughan from whom we still have just the single offset print available, "Riverhead".

The impetus for putting together our new gardens/gardening art collection really came from seeing how the posters of Japanese woodblock prints brought together artistic merit with a celebration of gardening as art, as the gardens in Japan are surely the epitome of the landscape as art. And we thought that maybe people who are into gardening but not so much into art would like to see just how well Japanese style wall art would suit them but they would not think to search for this kind of artwork in our online catalogue.

Gardens are such a fascinating glimpse into the way we imagine we would like to live, from the garden that is neglected to one that is bursting with this season's most fashionable colours how we garden says so much about the people who live in it.  We hope you enjoy our new collection of garden art prints - it is not just for those of us who are into gardens and landscaping, surely there are plenty of folk who may enjoy a garden when it is an artistic expression of aspects of what a garden is framed on the wall rather than being out there pulling out the weeds every weekend!

Fine Art Print vs Fine Art Printing

Can a print of fine art not be a fine art print?

I've never really liked the fine print part of our businesses name because it's meaning can be lost in a different context, ie the agreement sounds promising but have you checked the fine print?  But the fact that prints is also a homonym (prints/prince) also bugs me a bit so I think it is my inner language pedant that is at fault here rather than a branding issue that we need to change.

So we stuck with the Fine Prints part of our company's moniker when we broadened the business name from Avon Fine Prints (which was actually a sub brand of ours that specialised in limited edition reproductions of antique NZ prints in the 1960s and 70s) as we felt that this was now limiting the scope of what we did as we began stocking many more prints by contemporary artists.

This week I was surprised to find that another meaning for fine art print was in use that seems obvious now but had not resonated with me previously.

Northland Panels by Colin McCahon (Fine Art Print?)

We are calling a reproduction of Colin McCahon's painting "Northland Panels" a fine art print, why asked Glenn of Artrite - when it was not fine art printing at all but a photolithograph?  Ah, we said, that is because Colin McCahon is a "fine art" New Zealand artist.  Meaning that he has studied fine art, produced fine art (rather than design or decorative art) and the artist's work appears in collections at prestigious NZ art galleries such as Te Papa or Auckland Art Gallery.

But Glenn had had a call from a gallery concerned that we were selling a "fine art print" of a well-known artist's work for $60, which a customer had pointed out to them looked like the same image they were selling that was printed by Artrite for $600 - in this case a limited edition screenprint (which we also stocked).  From a screenprinters' point of view fine art print meant a fine art production process, rather than a reproduction photo-lithograph like the $60 print.  This had not occurred to me, and it had not occurred to Glenn that a photo-lithograph could be a fine art print as it was a print of fine art!

We do not want to sow seeds of confusion, we are not trying to convey that the $60 print in question is of the same quality as a limited edition screenprint - but we also need to use the words that are in common usage for what we sell in order for customers to find what they wish to buy.  The case I remember from the early days of online marketing was the luxury car brand that insisted that second hand cars were "pre-owned" rather than "used", but had to change this when they realised that nobody ever looked for "pre-owned cars".

Occasionally we are taken to task over whether a print is actually a "reproduction", or if a reproduction print should actually be called a "poster".  I refer back to the car example above, to some extent we have to use the words that customers use even if there is a narrower meaning to an expert in their field, in this case a fine art printer like Glenn from Artrite.

We are making some big changes to prints.co.nz in the next few weeks, one job I will do during this process is to check every one of our thousands of product listings to make sure we are describing prints as accurately as we can - some listings are now just on 20 years old and in the light of this interesting discussion I will make sure that descriptions are as clear to as many of our visitors as possible as they are to us when we are writing them.

2018 NZ Fine Prints Catalogue coming out this week

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!

Educational Posters for NZ kids

Growing up with prints of famous paintings on the walls at home should be considered part of our parental responsibility of bringing up kiwi kids who are culturally well-rounded. There is something about living alongside famous artworks everyday that makes them not just familiar but understood. Seeing a print everyday is a different and more resonant level of engagement than swiping through images from the internet, where initial impact is all important rather than a lingering contemplation.

However art education prints are not the only wall art available for kids rooms, kiwiana is big too as it features icons of kiwi childhood like buzzy bees, jet planes and playground rocket ships, often now remixed into something more than just nostalgic Pakeha recycling, what we are calling post or neo kiwiana where the artistic conversation with NZ's past moves beyond just nostalgia and the appropriation of commercial motifs.

NZ Map in the Maori language
Educational poster for 4-12 year olds

The kiwiana ABC poster released a few years ago has made us realise that our range of educational posters should not just be limited to art education as we all like to put some basic learning resources on the walls when the kids are young, maps in the bathroom, a counting poster by the potty in our family's case. When we researched the publishers selling educational posters designed for NZ children we realised that with about twenty titles specifically made for kiwi parents to buy we could add a purely educational strand to our collection of kid orientated wall art pretty easily. Thanks to publishers like Huia we now have the first of these posters arriving in our kids collection, starting with two cool new NZ and world maps in Te Reo by Wellington artist, designer and illustrator Josh Morgan.

I will be adding pictures and links to this article shortly, writing this away from the office in the midst of the drizzliest school holidays in living memory and my kids only have so much tolerance for Dad using the iPad for work (but expect me to leave them in total peace if it is their turn on devices!).

And here we have the illustration that was supposed to accompany this post "Toko Whenua: Aotearoa", a large (A1 size) poster of NZ with all place names and places of interest in te reo Maori.  It's a fun learning resource for families, schools and pre-schools with eye catching illustrations designed to inspire kiwi children to learn more about the country they live in and increase their Maori language skills as the name and talk about the features of different places.

Dick Frizzell Recipe Prints

Lisa's Afghans

Hot Buttered

From 2007 to 2009 Dick Frizzell created a series of screenprints based on the Frizzell family's favourite recipes. These silkscreen limited editions sold, ahem, like hot cakes, and several years later we were still being asked for "Coco's Pikelets" and especially "Lisa's Afghans".  Although the limited editions are long sold out Dick has made open edition (and unsigned) reproduction prints of the original artworks that he holds in his personal collection.  These are very well priced at just $NZ49.95 per print unframed.

Coco's Pikelets

Although this series is nearly a decade old Dick's stark colour palette cleverly anticipated the black and white revival in interior design today.  The recipe series distinctively "Frizzellian" handwriting and the fact that he used kiwi favourite foods (and the recipes actually work) make these prints perfect for kiwi kitchens, and we are delighted to list three new prints from Dick Frizzell's recipe series in our culinary prints and posters collection - food & drink this afternoon.

Next Art Prints, Posters & Limited Editions Catalogue - Sneak Peek

We have completed the difficult but enjoyable task of selecting and cataloging just over 500 fine art prints, posters and limited editions for the next New Zealand Fine Prints free mail order catalogue.

Here is a sneak peek at our 2014 catalogue in PDF form (although we have compressed it to 8MB it will take a few seconds to download).

Click here to download Catalogue (PDF)

Printed free versions of this catalogue will be available from early July. Please let us know if you spot any errors before we send this final draft off to the printers!

Blockbusters Exhibition: Promotional screenprint signed by Dick & Otis Frizzell + Mike Weston

A promotional screenprint has been released for the "Blockbusters" exhibition of new work from Frizzell and Son (Dick and Otis Frizzell) and Weston Frizzell (Otis Frizzell and Mike Weston in collaboration).

In the vocabulary of graffiti art the term Blockbuster refers to a piece where one word occupies the entire wall. The outlined text is predominantly defined by the blacking out of the gaps and negative space. Parasitic of the underlying work, a BLOCKBUSTER envelopes and consumes the surface.

A Blockbuster is also the biggest thing of the summer, the thing everyone has to see.

The Blockbusters screen print is large (A1 size) numbered and signed by Dick Frizzell, Otis Frizzell and Mike Weston.

Just $100 each, edition of 100 - available here (for a very limited time!).

NZ Prints - Christchurch Earthquake Update 2

From Monday 28th February NZ Prints staff are now working at our temporary office outside of the CBD.  All our computer systems are unaffected and running as normal.  Please note all NZ Fine Prints contact details such as phone numbers and email addresses have been diverted and have not changed - all NZ Prints contact details are listed here.  Artists and suppliers please re-direct all deliveries from 28th February to our temporary office at 139 Hackthorne Rd, Cashmere. 

We are currently unable to ship art print and poster orders due to our gallery being within the Christchurch CBD cordon and normal courier services being unavailable.  Thank you for your patience during this difficult time - we will start shipping prints and posters as soon as possible. 

NZ Photographer's "Winery Doors" poster series takes off

Nelson & Marlborough Winery Doors Poster

"Winery Doors" photographer Renee Dale

One of the things that perplexes us here at NZ Fine Prints is the comparatively small number of photography posters and prints by NZ photographers that are for sale in the New Zealand art market and the generally lacklustre level of sales - apart from the top selling poster of NZ tramping huts! New Zealand's other top selling photographic posters are the iconic view of Auckland's One Tree Hill (before the loss of the lone pine) and Rangitoto Island by Paolo Koch but apart from posters by Nelson nature photographer Craig Potton there is not yet a large number of well known (what we sometimes call "brand name") NZ photographers whose work is popular in a fine art print or poster format. The interest in collecting historic and contemporay NZ fine art photography that has led to some astonishingly high prices at auction over recent years has not yet translated into sales of posters of work by NZ photographers.

Recently however a young NZ photographer called Renee Dale (pictured above left on location) has put together a series of winery door posters that are chalking up an impressively large numbers of sales with over 100 retailers now carrying her posters across Australasia.  Renee Dale's "Winery Doors" concept has taken her from her first poster of cellar doors in Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa, through Central Otago and Canterbury and she has just released her newest poster in the series, this time of wineries in Nelson and Marlborough (pictured above right). Dale has also completed posters in this series showing doors of wineries in the winegrowing regions of the US and Australia.  We have been amazed at the popularity of these posters after sending them all around the world over the past few months - we agree with the sentiments of a Hawkes Bay winery owner who told Renee recently that he had "bought a box and thought I would just see how they went.  Well, I was completely wrong to be worried.  The first 10 sold out within the first week or so, so I ordered another 2 boxes.  Then they sold out, and so on... People just love these cellar door posters...".  It's a great concept and we look forward to the next project from this enterprising young NZ photographer.

Photography Prints & Posters by New Zealand Photographers

As I catalogue new prints that come in I am continually surprised by how little New Zealand photography is available for sale. Some of our top selling photographic prints and posters were published last century!

To remedy this we are working with some well known photographers like David Kerr to develop (no pun intended) an initial range of good contemporary New Zealand landscape photography. We are starting with a series of limited edition photographic prints of David's favourite photographs from several decades of work - like his famous photograph of the Four Square store on Waiheke Island pictured at right.

I would love to hear readers of New Zealand Art Print News what kind of NZ photography you would like to have available as large format prints. Special places or typical NZ scenes? Famous New Zealand photographers like Marti Friedlander or Peter Peyer? Leave me a comment...

New Prints in Stock Today

After our busiest ever Xmas I have finally got some cataloging time to process some of the dozens of new prints that have arrived at our warehouse over the past few weeks.  It has been all hands to the deck to get prints shipped around New Zealand and the world in time for Christmas day.

Summary of new prints added today.

• Keith Haring pop art prints from a leading French publisher
• Print of the famous Charles Ebbets New York depression era photograph of Lunch atop a Skyscraper 1932
• A couple of great posters by Klimt - also available framed
• Tony Ogle sold out print called Still in Service - Tony has found an artists' proof when he moved from his long term residence in Bethels Beach to Gisborne
• Dick Frizzell - several new original prints including Overnight Success (the print of Frizzell's mum's pavlova recipe) and Leger Demain III
  
• A large good quality poster of a painting by master American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock for just $20
  

Otis Frizzell Signed posters

Today we have added three new signed posters by Otis Frizzell.