$6.5 Million for a Peter Lik Photograph

[paulr]

He's like the Thomas Kinkade of landscape photography.

I don't usually like to say things like this about someone who's alive, but, um, yeah.

Seems a bit like the pendulum swinging savagely away from un-pretty, brainier work. No fear of finding ideas in any of these images.

[DrTang]

[QUOTE=Richard Johnson;1195689]I favor the drug money laundry scenario.

QUOTE]


NOW HOLD ON THERE

this is a brilliant biz op

dang.. it is brilliant

drug cartels by my crappy pix for 2.9 million... I give them back 2.85 million in cash

win-win

[StoneNYC]

To all the haters... I leave you this quote that someone used to cheer me up when I was having images flagged on a social network...

"Have you ever seen a hater doing better than you are?"

Those who put down his work probably are mostly jealous of his success and are projecting their own fears of inadequacy from not being as successful as he is.

[djdister]

I wouldn't mind selling one of my works for a tenth of that...

[Kimberly Anderson]

No fear of finding ideas in any of these images.

I love this quote. It is perfect.

[Bob Salomon]

And maybe he has been raising the perceived value of "photographic art". With "sales" like this it isn't just painters and sculptors that can pull down big bucks. In the long run it may let everyone raise their prices as well. Providing the public likes their images enough to pay those bucks!

Have you visited a Lik gallery? The one that we visited in Vegas was certainly busy! And seeing one of his prints in the background of a lot of Pawn Stars episodes doesn't hurt either!

[dsphotog]

Remember, it's an investment.... Certain to appreciate in value.

[cowanw]

Now I'm going to be the cynical one.......I will believe it when I see such numbers in a public sale. Galleries have been known to fake such sales to boost an artists value-happens all the time. You get a "buyer" to front the money. The "sale" happens and then the money (or a large part of it) is quietly given back to the buyer. But the public perception is that the deal was for real and the artist stock goes way up.

Stieglitz and O'keefe did this to brilliant and longlasting effect.

[Deval]

He uses an iq180 on a phase one and I think and a D800 recently with no quams about photoshop, multiple exposures, and HDR in his recent work, however he started out by claiming a no photoshop mantra which has. Good for him if this is a real sale...I think his best work has been done on 6x17 and the quality has gone down since(same with rodney lough when he switched to the iq180). I think what makes him successful beyond recent media popularity is the fact that he has placed galleries in specific locations where people have no issues about spending $2-$10,000 on an impulse buy during a vacation. His galleries are beautifully designed and the work is displayed extremely well so they give the impression of success to a buyer.

There is no question on a basic level that the choice of color and subjects speaks to clientelle, because salesmenship alone won't cut it. High saturation large prints bring a lot of punch to a plain white wall which sorely needs decoration.
Fine art photography has certainly been the red headed step child to other forms of fine art, and if these types of folks can give it any legitimacy, good for all of us. It would be nice to have access to the same clientelle and show them what really good fine art photography looks like. Might be nice if he started an "emerging" artists section to his galleries.

[Mark Sawyer]

Fine art photography has certainly been the red headed step child to other forms of fine art, and if these types of folks can give it any legitimacy, good for all of us...

Alas, it seems he's taught the red-headed step-child how to dress up and do a Miley Cyrus routine. Not that there isn't fame and fortune in that...