Limited Edition... any real meaning?

[Dan Smith]

Below is some info on Thomas Kinkade "limited edition" prints. We in the LF community have often debated this idea yet I have seen no one who takes it to this extreme. Even going to the 'DNA coded ink" for signing prints (using the signing machine) so the prints can be authenticated.
So much for the idea of exclusivity or even doing your own printing. If I were to attempt to make 500 of the same print, contact in silver or pt/pd hand coated, it would take a long time. I just dont' have that time if I am to print more than one image a month.
I am not saying limited edition work is positive or negative. We all make our choices & market the work as we see fit. But advertising a 'limited edition' and then having numbers that are so far from 'limited' as to be laughable seems to me to be dishonest.
Comments?





Just framed a 'limited edition' print for a customer by a certain well-known artist. I've framed other work by this artist before, but this time I really read the Certificate of Authenticity and it stated the following:

Standard Numbered edition-Canvas: 2950
Standard Numbered edition-paper: 2850
Artist Proof-Canvas: 590
Artist Proof-paper: 570
Gallery Proof-canvas: 1100
Gallery proof-paper: 1000
Publisher proof-canvas: 530
Publisher proof-paper: 520
International proof-canvas: 590
International proof-paper: 570
Atelier National-canvas: 400
Atelier National-paper: 400
Atelier International-canvas: 400
Atelier International-paper: 400
Renaissance Edition-canvas: 240
Studio proof-canvas: 120
Studio proof-paper: 120
Master Edition-canvas: 1

BUT that's not all...
that's just for the 24x30 size that this picture was. It's also available in 20x24 AND 16x20.
The certificate states total worldwide edition size is..........get ready.............
36,853!

"I have one in my shop now with a number of "2875/3500-I". And I have seen several with the letter(s) after like ZZ and II after the number.

That leads me to believe that the total size of the edition could be 3500 x 26 x 26 = 2,366,000 on just this one signed and numbered edition-paper. Crap, no wonder he don't hand sign the prints."

[Ralph Barker]

If these numbers define "limited", my mind is too boggled to frame a comment. ;-)

[Will Strain]

<sarcasm>

Why didn't I think of that? I can get around my previous edition limits by just printing on a different paper! It's genius!

</sarcasm>

[John Kasaian]

DNA ink?? Wow! If the Artist signed his name in blood he'd no doubt be enemic after that many limited editions.

It kind of gives the impression that the 'art world' is full of hucksters and scallawags---probably a good place for them too since they can't do much damage or hurt anyone real bad (which could happen easily in a real trade like being an automobile mechanic or an electrician)

I own a few limited edition prints, but I bought them because I like the way they look, not as an investment. Hey aren't all an artist's prints limited? One's death will certainly put the kabosh on One's darkroom productivity.

That DNA ink though...man thats wierd!

Cheers!

[Wilbur Wong]

Didn't Sadam's ivoried halls have extensive caligraphy of "deeds" etc done in ink containing his blood? So maybe it's not such a novel idea . . . .

[Mark Carney]

I've gone to scientific notation after my roman numeral system went to 3 pages.

Mark Carney

[John_4185]

In this digital age I look forward to the buyer who will purchase the original negative along with what I believe at the moment is my best print. Thereafter, every print will clearly be derivative, for better or worse.

[Ralph]

Kinkade is probably the best-known living painter in the United States.

By sheer number, I'm guessing Kinkade is the top-selling, or one of the top-selling, living painters worldwide; I certainly can't think of anyone who sells more. (Those of you who live in other countries can look at his stuff and scratch your heads in wonder at those silly Americans!)

Not making excuses for the ridiculousness of TK's various "limited" editions (he has teams of painters in regional studios who hand-paint various flourishes onto mass-printed canvases in a stepped-pricing scheme and he has who-knows-how-many dedicated "galleries" [stores in shopping malls] around the country). I'm merely pointing out that he's a special case because he has a huge cult following. Many people consider him a lone voice of beauty in an contemporary art world run amok.

Doesn't work for me, but it apparently does for an awful lot of buyers. And when you get into the kind of sales numbers Kinkade's gotten into (tens and tens of thousands of "paintings," apart from literally millions of books and calendars and knick-knacks), you have to figure out tiny, and silly, ways to differentiate one version from the next.

The guy's an industry. Not just a brand, but an industry. I don't think anyone else does anything remotely close.

[CXC]

People who specifically buy limited editions are buying something other than, or at least along with, art. Call it aura, or a collectable, or an investment. Some might call it a gamble. The rules, implied or specific, are marketplace-driven, with all its inherent speculative risks.

In most non-photo editions, the number can have useful meaning. If you buy an etching, you know what you are getting, a print from an acid-etched plate of copper. Now, such plates wear out, slowly; presumably the first X hundred are clean, the next Y hundred (if any) are marginally acceptable, and the remaining Z hundred (presumably suppressed) are crap. Then the plate is bathed flat for re-use: no more prints, ever. Hopefully, when you go into a gallery and see exactly one copy of the edition, say labelled 25/150, it is within your wherewithal to determine that 150 is probably an entirely clean run for a copper etching (hey, it might very well be!), and this one is well to the front of that run, and thus can be presumed to represent the artist's intent very closely, and be a top quality example of the printing process.

Photo editions don't have this restriction, since with care, negs and digital files basically never wear out: the 100,000th print can be absolutely identical, indistinguishable from the first. So for photography, the edition is a marketing tool, used for driving price up. Or down, sometimes, through honestly presented economies of scale.

QT Luong,
would you care to comment? I believe you create editions of various kinds of the same image, presented and priced differently. It would be great to hear an insider's version of this issue.

[Curt Palm]

T. Kinkade has a factory near where i live.
the entrance was landscaped to look like one of his paintings.
He's also designed a suburb that looks like one of his paintings, but i don't know if it's been built.
I'd say he is a marketing genius, more than an artistic genius.
It would be interesting to see if any of his works hold their value in 25-50 years.

[Ralph]

Good article on Kinkade -- and his custom-designed suburb -- in Salon:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/style/2002/03/18/kinkade_village/

[Ralph]

Hmm. When I Googled it, it worked; when I pasted in the link above, Salon raised all kinds of flags.

At Google, type Kinkade Hiddenbrooke and then choose the salon.com entry. Should take you straight to the article.

Not sure I could say with a straight face "I live in Hiddenbrooke."

[John_4185]

As long as Kinkade is making a killing, there' s no excuse for a self-disrespecting photographic hack not becoming a millionaire.

[Eric Woodbury]

Customers want limited editions; it's for the customers.

[Ralph]

One more try using the Google method and the Salon article didn't show up without the fuss about a Site Pass (because I was a return visitor? Perhaps.) Probably not worth the trouble of watching a shoe commercial just to read about an artist who sells paintings the way shoes are sold.

Instead, you might read about him in the (UK) Guardian instead of Salon:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,751449,00.html

[Chad Jarvis]

"I'd say he is a marketing genius, more than an artistic genius." Oh, like Warhol? And before the arguments start, Mr. Warhol himself admitted that for him it was all about the money. He saw himself as farsical, and to prove it, he named his studio "the factory". Can there be any coincidence that TK has a factory as well?

Edition sizes are meaningless.

[matthew blais]

I have to say I always admired Kinkade's marketing efforts/strategy as well. His mass produced consumer stuff is pure crap but to the uneducated, it is "art". My best friends have two of his "limited edition" prints...which are nothing but inkjets on canvas. They paid way too much and other than to another Kinkade fan who has to have that particular image because the 30,000 "limited" copies are gone, it may hold a value.

I cringe when I see these on their wall, within sight of the few photographs I've given them.

[Michael Gordon]

Do you really think that people who enjoy and buy Kinkades are actually going to question the process or edition?

Frankly, Kinkade is brilliant and is smiling all the way to the bank. We should all be so fortunate. As long as you don't really consider him an 'artist', this all makes perfectly good business sense.

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Limited edition = limited to how many he can sell. Kikade is to painting what Kenny G is to jazz- pop culture generic crap. The very fact that so many people buy this stuff is sad testimony to the state of "culture" in this country.

[Bob Salomon - HP Marketing]

" no wonder he don't hand sign the prints.""

60 Minutes did a piece on him a couple of years ago and showed him signing prints.

Of course it also showed paid help in his shop applying white paint to edge details at a higher price.

Apparently he just might only paint the original and all the ones sold are copies any way.

[paulr]

"As long as Kinkade is making a killing, there' s no excuse for a self-disrespecting photographic hack not becoming a millionaire"

according to the salon article, he's actually been in financial trouble for the last 4 quarters. so maybe he's an artist after all.

Actually, this whole story illuminates one of the truths of editioning: it's a marketing tool, and the way you use it needs to be determined by the conventions of the market you're trying to reach (unless you're willing to butt heads with dealers and customers).

In Kinkaid's case, his market is the mass market. Not surprisingly, this is not a market that seems to have much connection to the ways (or tastes) of other art markets. In the gallery world, things are different. In fact, there are many different worlds that fall under the umbrella term of the gallery world, and each of these is different. In small town craft shop/frame shop/galleries, you're going to find one set of conventions. In blue chip galleries you're going to find another. Even among these there are divisions. The galleries in Chelsea in Manhattan grew up emulating painting galleries, and so they specialize in photography with a more "fine art" presentation .. in this case meaning more like painting. Very small editions, unconventional presentation, very high prices. A mile away in Soho the conventions are different.

If you have very strong feelings about how you want to edition (or not edition) your work, it might help to do some homework and figure out which market has conventions that are aligned with yours.

[tim atherton]

"It kind of gives the impression that the 'art world' is full of
hucksters and scallawags---probably a good place for them too since they
can't do much damage or hurt anyone real bad..."

it's ain't exactly the art world (is really bad art still art?) it's more "art to match your sofa" world

[Steven Barall]

DNA ink sounds scary. And if the photo turns out to actually be mine, she can then also sue me for child support.

[John_4185]

Limited Editions or editions intended for the limited?

[paulr]

"it's ain't exactly the art world (is really bad art still art?) it's more "art to match your sofa" world"

a really bad hairdo is still a hairdo, so I strongly believe that really bad art is still art. and the Art To Match Your Sofa world is indeed one of the many art worlds out there. the only mistake is in thinking that any of these various art worlds even talk to each other.

[Robert Skeoch]

I think the first thing to do is figure out how many prints you can sell. Then use that number as the number in the limited editions. That way you can make the same number of sales but the customer thinks he's getting something that's rare.
-Rob Skeoch

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

and the Art To Match Your Sofa world is indeed one of the many art worlds out there

If money is the measure of success, I would say this is the most important part of the art world.... :-)

[tim atherton]

"and the Art To Match Your Sofa world is indeed one of the many art worlds out there
If money is the measure of success, I would say this is the most important part of the art world.... :-) "

which must also make Celine Dion one of the most profound musical artists of all time....!

[QT Luong]

CXC, I just have a different edition number per image size, like many do. So far they exceed what I can hope to sell on the internet, but if I start to use other venues, I could see some images selling out. I'd say as long as you sell out
some editions, no matter what the number is, be it 10 or 10,000, then that number is credible.

I think you were thinking about that post where I asked what people would think if one would offer photographic prints (ie lighjets) as limited edition, and
inkjets as posters. It does not mean that I implemented the idea. Reminds me of this question I raised in a stock photo forum about selling the same image as RM and RF (not that's something I plan to do soon, since I don't even sell RF). All respondents posted to say I was clueless, but there was very few good well-reasonned replies as to why this would be wrong.

[Jerry Thirsty]

I remember seeing a TV special (possibly the 60 Minutes one) about TK. He shows up at these auditoriums/art shows with several shipping pallets of pre-framed prints and after his presentation sells and signs them for the people in the crowd (although I suppose he must be signing the front of the plexiglass). Apparently his "signature" when he does this is a couple of swoops or curliques or something, because it takes about a second apiece. I got the impression from the show that he always sells everything he brings with him. Not the sort I've thing I'd expect to see going for much on Antiques Roadshow in 50 years.