Ends of lines - editions about to sell out

What is our Endangered Prints gallery all about?

When customers were first able to buy prints online from NZ Fine Prints back in 1999 one of the first galleries we created almost on a whim (and definitely with a whimsical name) has become one of the most frequently visited pages at Prints.co.nz - up there with NZ's currently top selling prints and what's new most months in page views.  It's rather odd name (endangered prints) has stuck so perhaps the high traffic to this collection is due to the puzzling listing on our galleries page being clicked on by curious first time visitors!

Quite simply the endangered prints gallery lets print buyers know which prints are in danger of selling out. 

When we sold through mail order catalogue pre internet this impending deletion/selling out was impossible to convey, so we would have to drop a print completely from our range if we forecast that there wasn't enough stock to cover sales expected for the length of time that the catalogue was current. 

Some customers find it curious that both limited and open edition prints can go out of print - and ask why can't we just print some more if the print is not from a limited edition?  So in this article we'll talk about how both kinds of prints become endangered and then at the end of the post you will find our list of prints that have made it onto this list over the past couple of months.  It's a cliche but true when we say to please buy now to avoid disappointment...

Limited Edition Prints

About to sell out - Tony Ogle's Anaura Bay print

Editions by their very nature are not going to be available forever.  NZ's most successful printmakers long term - for instance Tony Ogle, Dick Frizzell & Shane Hansen - keep a balance in the market between new artworks being made and older editions selling out.  This is a seperate issue from "edition size creep" where printmakers with sold out editions early on sometimes begin to increase edition sizes to a number that is simply too big for the New Zealand market to absorb over a reasonable length of time (in our view 2-3 years).  Top NZ printmakers like the artists above produce 2-5 new editions a year and sell out a similar number of earlier editions annually (see for instance a list of Tony's sold out editions by year here). This means the market for their work is kept in balance, preserving both the purchasers investment and keeping the artist's income at level that sustains their art practice.  This is not an artificial way of squeezing supply - making a large print takes weeks and even months after all - it just prevents an overhang of unsold prints developing over time if supply is greater than demand.

We have found that there is a U shaped demand for original limited edition prints.  There is high demand at the beginning, collectors of an artist's work are keen to add the new print to their collection, sometimes a scramble to secure a favourite edition number from the edition and simply the fact that you can be the first to have a cool new print on your wall drives early sales.  In the middle of the sales cycle print sales will settle down to a regular (and surprisingly steady) monthly sales figure until around 80% of the edition is sold out.  Then demand rises steeply, higher than at the beginning of the limited edition sales cycle, as buyers who have been pondering a purchase are forced to make up their minds and the very fact that this edition is proving it will sell out brings the more financially minded collector to the party.  When we are down to less than 5% of the edition being available the print goes into the endangered gallery.  Some artists increase the price as the edition starts to sell out too!  Knowing which prints are going to sell out creates real value for our customers and we are adding new limited edition prints to the endangered gallery every few weeks. 

Open Edition Prints

Reproduction prints also sell out.  Although technically they can be re-printed there are actually a host of reasons why this may not happen with a particular image. In no particular order...

1. Most people who want a print of painting x by artist y now own the print and it is not economic to re-print again. The NZ market is tiny, short print runs are the order of the day.  However printed offset a print may still be printed in a run of 300+ prints.  Selling one a week for six years will probably meet the demand for a reproduction of a painting by most NZ artists.  
2. The artist's contract with a publisher has expired, not been renewed or suddenly ended in acrimony!  Commercial publishers pay artists a royalty on each print sold (not the number printed), traditionally these were offset prints done in longish runs (up to 1000) and contracts stipulated that the publisher could keep selling prints until all physical stock was sold. However with digital (or print on demand) production when the contract (between 1-3 years) comes to an end for whatever reason the tap turns off pretty quickly.  We might have just one print left - or a pile on the shelf if it's a good seller - but either way we'll put the image into the endangered collection as we can't re-order it anymore.  This doesn't mean that the prints are suddenly more valuable, collectable etc, we are just signalling to print buyers that this image is about to go out of print - just like a book - and won't be available again unless it's on the secondary market (eg Trademe or auction).  It usually won't be available again and even in the rare cases the same image is re-printed later by another NZ publisher the format can change significantly between printings. For instance Mickey to Tiki has been printed in four different iterations, all in slightly different sizes and on changeable paper stock since it was first printed by the Christchurch Art Gallery from a print in their collection, followed by Image Vault (who dropped the 5/50 edition number that had been on the original print and was fatefully included on the initial reproduction), then Dick's World (they added the title and artist in the Frizzell font below the image and changed to a lighter paper stock) and soon it will be published by 100 Percent NZ as an A2 poster.
3. We lose touch with an artist.  Yes, this happens even in the age of Facebook and LinkedIn!  We might purchase from our less mainstream suppliers as little as once a year, then when we re-order the artist has retired, moved or even passed away.  Then all the prints we have left from this artist are moved into the endangered category. 
4. Publishers and distributors close down.  In just the last couple of years NZ has lost Thorndon Fine Prints and Stanford Arts.  We try and buy at least a couple of years supply of stock if we know this is about to happen but eventually we start to run out and the prints go onto the endangered list. Sometimes an artist whose work has been distributed by another company (like Timo) will get in touch, other times we just have to delete the print from our catalogue if we can't find a contact (we'd love to hear from you Ingrid Banwell).
5. A self-published artist changes their mind about having prints made.  When a visitor to an artist's studio likes a painting but doesn't actually want to buy it a polite way to say no is for the prospective purchaser to say "if only there was a print of it,  then I'd buy one of those instead".  A few people saying this does not mean that there is demand large enough to make a print run viable. An artist can produce a few (expensive due to the small print run) test prints and find that these do not sell as fast as they expected.  The price is too high and their work perhaps not well known for a visitor to NZ Fine Prints to search for them by name.  Unless the subject has a wide appeal a print can get lost amongst 2500+ titles in stock and the artist loses heart and doesn't continue beyond the few prints initially sold.  Not all artists are as downcast as one who asked us to withdraw stock in July (despite us still having a few prints to sell) and then delete his name from our catalogue as "I have had a hard time being an artist and I don't think I will go down that line too often now.  I am so sorry but it is art that does not like me."!
6. The print is deleted by the publisher for unknown reasons.  This is frustrating for us, particularly if the print is a good seller.  For non-NZ artwork we can usually find another supplier eventually, for instance we are out of Durer's "Hare" and Breughel's "Tower of Babel" after our Italian publisher deleted these ever popular prints from their catalogue but we should be able to substitute these with the same image from a publisher in the UK shortly.   For a NZ artist this is usually the end of the road - however we will actually publish a print ourselves if we think that something should be available even if it is not a mainstream commercial print (eg C.F. Goldie's famous portrait "A Good Joke" or Colin McCahon's key work "Northland Panels").
7. The print is no longer available in all formats.  This is becoming an issue, an

   

   Canvas art print no more - paper version only

   artist may withdraw a print on canvas, but keep a print on fine art paper in production.  For instance painter Graham Young's kiwiana scenes such as his popular print of Auckland's Garnet Rd Dairy will only be available on paper going forward (despite the canvas version selling 10 to 1 compared to the paper version). We wonder if this is due to artists whose original paintings do not sell for much more than a stretched canvas print finding the competition from virtually indistinguishable reproductions a tough sell - particularly if they work with acrylic paints as they are really hard to tell apart from a printed reproduction.

Here is the list of prints that have had to be added to our endangered gallery over July and August.  The number of prints available to buy is the quantity we had in stock at 24 August 2016.  Link now broken? The print has sold out. 

Garnet Rd Dairy Canvas Print 10 

NZ Army Knife (NZAK) by Matt Moriaty 1

Anaura Bay by Tony Ogle 1
Goldie Print "The Widow" 3
"Haka" by Doug Ferris 1
"My Land" by Jane Puckey 3
Graveyards surf break by Peter Lambert 1
"Bather 1" by Barry Ross Smith 1
Kokako by Jo Simon 1

The two kinds of limited edition prints

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.

[This writer is well aware that calling the first sort of limited editions “prints” at all is controversial (some in the industry say they should only every be called “reproductions” rather than "prints") - you can read about this debate in a previous article "Artists prints or reproduction prints, spotting the difference in the age of digital printing"].

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".

Printing & selling canvas prints - advice for NZ artists from Christchurch painter Linelle Stacey

The trend for artists to reproduce their work as canvas prints either instead of or alongside traditional paper prints has (along with the migration from offset to digital printing) been one of the major changes in the reproduction prints part of our industry over the past ten years.

Artists contact us regularly to ask how they go about making and selling prints of their paintings on canvas so NZ Art Print News spoke to one of the most successful sellers of reproductions on canvas in New Zealand to find out how she does it.

Christchurch artist Linelle Stacey who publishes
a top selling range of reproduction canvas prints
of her paintings

We asked Christchurch painter Linelle Stacey what made her decide to publish and sell prints in the first place. She told us that she had "painted a little through my teens and even exhibited my work in my early twenties but then marriage and a family took precedence and I put my art aside until my family was grown.  Five years ago I gave up a full time job to be an artist and soon found it was difficult to provide an income from painting alone. Having prints as well as paintings for my customers to purchase has allowed me to continue to paint full-time and gives my customers a lower priced options for buying my artworks."

Stacey did not choose to publish prints on paper because she painted on stretched canvases and by printing on canvas the artworks would be "as much like the originals as was possible".

To achieve the level of sales that Linelle has she didn't simply reproduce prints of her favourite paintings to see how they would go. Her first step was to research the market, both to see how prints were being made and find out what subjects and scenes were popular. She told us "I went to as many galleries and print retailers as I could find to see what prints were currently available and asked questions about the printing processes that were involved. I used the internet and also rang printers and again asked a lot of questions."

A lot of artists get stuck trying to find the right printer (we wrote about the options available in NZ digital printing market from a more technical point of view last year here) so we asked Linelle how once she had decided which images to print how did she choose the printer to print her canvases for her? She told us that "I spoke with a large number of printers, telling them what I was looking for and eventually found around half a dozen that I felt could possibly provide the kind of prints I was looking for".

Her next step was to compare canvas printers.  "I invested a little money at this point in getting samples from these print companies so I could physically see what their prints looked like. I was then able to compare quality, the materials they used, prices and delivery timeframes." Linelle ranked the results of her sample printing with quality being her number one priority, but always balanced against price. "In the end", says Linelle,  "I think it came down to a desire to work with me to provide the kind of print I wanted at a price that was acceptable. There are a lot of companies who simply say – this is what we do and this is the price. They didn’t particularly care or even listen to what I was trying to achieve."

In the end the printer Linelle chose is based in New Zealand.  She said "I ordered some samples from overseas printers. This was a very expensive time consuming process and the quality was rubbish compared to the NZ companies I’d trialled."

"Routeburn Stones" Linelle Stacey's latest canvas print
1000 x 400mm $NZ 199.95

We asked Linelle how she went about selling the prints once they had arrived, and what are her most popular subjects. She told us "I sell through the internet, through retail outlets (and of course you can buy all of Linelle's canvas prints from NZ Fine Prints' canvas prints collection) and my studio. My most popular subjects are the same with my prints as with my paintings, beaches (especially towards the end of summer), winter mountainous landscapes, monochromatic images and landscapes with dramatic lighting such as the Lindis Pass."

Finally what are Linelle's hot tips for NZ artists considering printing and selling reproduction prints on canvas?

1. Great images of your artwork are key.  Linelle has a very talented photographer who produces the most amazing digital copies of her work. Have a look at our article by Auckland photographer Bret Lucas on "How to photograph a painting" if you would like to learn more on this vital first step.

2. Don’t be put off by information from any one company. There are many different printing services out there and with perseverance you will find the right one for you.

Thank you Linelle for sharing your experience with publishing canvas prints with NZ Art Print News.

Prints of Paintings by Gordon Walters

Gordon Walters is easily one of New Zealand's most popular artists. Walters' koru paintings truly deserve the much overused phrase "iconic". Why is it then that we don't have any Gordon Walters prints in stock?

It seems that with the death of Walters in 1995 and Margaret Orbell (Walters' widow) in 2006 the supply of prints to people who appreciate and enjoy Walters paintings without being able to afford an original work is being stopped by the Trustees of the Gordon Walters Estate. Does anyone know why they are taking this stance or have any other information? Please post a comment. We'll update this post as we learn more.