A question for sellers and buyers of limited edition prints

[Rory_3532]

I don't understand the concept of a limited edition print unless the phrase means that the negative and/or digital file is destroyed or permanently retired once the edition has been sold. Nor do I understand why a photographer would destroy or permanently retire a good negative.

Here are my questions:

If you are a vendor of limited edition prints, do you in fact destroy or retire the negative and/or digital file once the edition has been sold? If not, what do you think limited edition means?

If you are a buyer of prints, what do you think limited means, do you care whether an edition is limited and, if so, why?

[Mark_3632]

I've wondered this myself. I know that in casting the mold is destroyed and Northwest Coast Native artisans destroy the screens after the last silkscreened print is made. Maybe photographers do what bret Weston did on his eightieth-at least I think it was his eightieth-birthday.

[Witold Grabiec]

There is probalby some contributors who are involved in art collecting so their opinions may differ, but:

as a buyer (which I am currently not) I would expect "limited" to mean one of the two:

1. print is available ONLY in stated quantity and will not ever be reprinted (except in publications such as books, calendars etc.), so the number is fixed which hoepfully will drive its value through the roof. I see how collectors might want this. I don't know if this has ever been done.

or

2. print is available in stated quantity ONLY in the specific format/extra features (like original signature). This approach would allow the print to sell in other forms and would likely not be as valueable.

[jnantz]

hi rory

i am guilty of destroying negatives after i make a good print ... well, not all my negatives .. i make "hybrid" prints - from found items, glass, plastics, ink adhesives &c with / without a camera made negative - i "dissassemble" / destroy my negative after i get a good print. i do this mainly because i don't want to be able to make another. i think it is a great thing to be able to make print after print of the same negative (sometimes i do it myself ) but i also like the idea of having a singular item that can not be reproduced.

[Bill_1856]

My only major holding of a limited edition print is a very large "nude in a bathtub" by Kim Weston, purchased at Maggi Weston's Gallery in Carmel. It was limited to a single enlarged print, and the cancelled 8x10 negative is glued to the back of the mount. I personally think that limiting the number of prints is a counterproductive thing to do, (particularly since we all know how easy it would be to cheat). The size of the marketplace will automatically limit the quantity of prints; for example, I think there are only about 15 genuine "Pepper #30" prints by EW. Frankly, I would prefer that they just sequentially number the prints as they are made or sold.

[QT Luong]

It's pretty rare that originals are destroyed. But I believe most artists keep to their word not to print over the edition number. Sometimes, one can get away with making a few more prints and selling tham as "artist's proofs" or something like that, but even this practice has been questionned. Of course, it's all about the economics of creating scarcity to elevate value of an object that otherwise could be mass-producted.

[Jay DeFehr]

Almost all of my negatives are images of my family, and destroying them is as unthinkable as someone wanting to buy one. Clearly the motivation is different for artists selling their work, but I wonder if they suffer pangs of remorse when they retire/destroy a negative, or if they're relieved to be done with that image and move on. Probably the answer is both, depending on the artist and the image. I find it fascinating that the market introduces destruction into the act of creation. Interesting thread.

[Paul Kierstead]

It raises the question: If you were to purchase a limited edition, where the terms of "limited" were stated and meant no more prints and limitation on other reproductions (eg. only in books and under a certain size) and the shyster did print some more past that, then would you have legal recourse? And against whom? The seller or photographer? And for how long; if the heirs decide to make a print 50 years later, can you pursue action? I would be leaning towards some sort of contract breach or misleading advertising.

Of course, a ULF polaroid is a true limited edition...

[James Venis]

This is a great topic for discussion, Rory, and I look forward to seeing more of others' responses. I also agree with you in thinking that this label, "limited edition," is problematic. Here's what the respected A Gallery for Fine Photography in Louisiana says:

"Every day we educate our guests with the important fact that an original photograph of this quality is handmade, signed, and copyright protected by the photographer. We correct the impression that these originals are easy to make. We convey the truth that in reality, the editions, whether open or limited, exist mostly in quantities of less than 200--and that only a very few have reached 700-1000 in a photographer's lifetime. Even so, each and every one of the originals have a type of uniqueness since they are almost always printed one or two at a time over a many year period."

So far as I know, Ansel Adams produced only open editions of his images. I believe he printed on demand or when his stock of a given image was getting low, and that these additional prints were given sequentially higher numbers. Even so, the most hotly collected image of the 20th Century, Adams' "Moonrise Over Hernandez," numbers only about 1100 prints.

I number my prints sequentially as produced and also by size, so that there is a number 1 print in 16x20 and also in 8x10, for instance. I wrestled with this, not sure it was the best way to handle the issue, but my research showed that this is the most common practice among fine-arts photographers. I'm thinking that I'll eventually impose a moratorium on printing a given negative when the number of prints from it in all sizes collectively equals 200, but that decision is still a ways off for me. Even with an image I've become weary of printing, I'm not sure I could bring myself to destroy its negative.

I fear this is one of those topics among both buyers and sellers that generates more heat than light.

--James

[Nick_3536]

"If you are a buyer of prints, what do you think limited means, do you care whether an edition is limited and, if so, why?"

It depends on why you're buying. How much you're paying. If you're a collector then it might matter if it's limited. If you're investing with the hope the print will go up you REALLY care if it's limited. If you are just buying something nice to cover the hole in the wall then no you don't care if it's limited or not.

On the issue why a photographer would destroy a negative or otherwise limit a print. The reasoning is pretty simple. You belive the stream of income from the limited edition will be higher then the amount you'll get from an unlimited print. One way to think about it is that no matter how good a print is the world holds a limited number of buyers. You really aren't limiting yourself a great deal by limiting the number of prints. Hopefully you're getting more per print.

[bob moulton]

I would add this thought to the thread. Some other visual artists have attacked photography historically because of the possibility of endless prints. they argue that a painting is art because it is unique. Photos aren't because they can be duplicated.

"The negative is the score; the print is the performance." Where have we heard that before?. If one examines Adams' interpretation of Moonrise, hernandez over the decades one sees revisions. If one reads the New York edition of henry James vs. the first editions, one sees revisions. Try the director's cut vs. the original release cut of films.

So i guess it can be argued either way. Certainly a single print or a small edition suggests uniqueness (read that possibility of value increasing.

If you coolect and/or sell increasing value is a good thing.

As far as destruction of negs is concerned, I think that denies future generations of artists the thrill of seeing how the old master selected, and interpreted his/her negatives. Whether you master is an Adams, Evans, Arbus, Lange, Winogrand , Weston or Cartier-Bresson, studying their processes cannot but increase your ability to see, understand, and enjoy.

[Joe Lipka]

Limited editions are an attempt to "increase" the value of the print by limiting production. Not the way photography works. As we all know, the more the image is seen the more it is desired.

Here is a link to the LensWork magazine web site. Scroll down to the bottom for an article on edition of prints.

http://www.lenswork.com/goodies.htm

[Jeff Moore]

In my own personal view the whole idea of limited editions is simply a scam, and one which doesn't even further the goals of those who perpetuate it. The only way that limited editions can be viewed as a positive is that if you look at art strictly as an investment (and even that is dubious, at best). I certainly don't look at my own work that way. I wish to get my work into the hands of as many people as possible. Limited editions directly contradict that goal. I would rather sell 100 prints at $100 each than 10 at $1000 each.

The essay by Brooks Jensen in Lenswork that Joe Lipka refers to articulates my point of view on limited editions much more eloquently than I can. I encourage you to read this piece; it challenges the conventional wisdom on limited edtitions. Here is the direct link: http://www.lenswork.com/whatsizeistheedition.pdf.

In addition here are two other pieces, also by Brooks, that are related to the same subjet matter: "How The Gallery System is Failing Photography," http://www.lenswork.com/lwsarticle1.htm

And, "An Alternative to the Gallery System," http://www.lenswork.com/lwsarticle2.htm

[Andre Noble]

There is a well known photographer who contributes to this site and who has a stockpile of images taken over a couple decades. This person once said they were contemplating destroying the negatives.

Personally, I feel that's being selfish.

[jerry brodkey]

From what I've seen the numbering of an edition is a relatively recent idea. It certainly wasn't done in the nineteenth or early twentieth century. I don't even think that the well known more modern photographers have generally bothered to number their prints. Talking to dealers and collectors, it's never been an issue, but what is important is proof that it is authentic.Often there is an artists signature on the back of the print, maybe a date and possibly where it has been shown. Letters from the artist about the sale are good. One can look through Christies and Sothebys photography catalogs and I don't remember seeing any reference to the number of the print. There may be some but I think it is rare. Even Steve McCurry's Afghan girl which can be bought from a number of different galleries is not numbered. You can buy it on the web from the Photoeye gallery and they don't even say anything about a print number....

[Michael A.Smith]

I have always numbered my prints with sequential numbers. I know exactly how many were printed, and to whom they were originally sold. Recently, I decided not to reprint any older negatives--right now that means no reprinting of negatives made before 1999. The editions are therefore now limited. Some prints may be limited to fewer than five, others may be 19 or 47 or 62 or some other "odd" number since the editions are now limited to those that were sold plus those that happen to be left in my files. In most cases, very few remain.

Relatively new work is unlimited and will be unlimited until there is even newer work.

I always felt that limiting prints was an artificial thing to do. And, in many ways still think that. So why have I done this? I am not getting any younger. There is much new work I would like to do. My time is limited. I would rather spend it making new photographs than reprinting old ones. Artists are interested in making things, not in things made--at least this one is.

Also, for many years I did not mind reprinting. Although my attempt when doing so was to match the original print, I never made a comparison until the new print was finished--so reprinting was always a fresh experience, and I often learned a lot from it. At this point in my career I no longer feel I learn very much from reprinting. Reprinting of older work for me now would be basically doing work just to make money. I never made photographs for that reason. If they sold, that was, and is, great, but it was never the motive for making them. (And that is true for all serious artists.) If my motive in life was to make money, long ago I would have chosen to do something else entirely. Do I need money? Sure. I cannot live on air. But I want money so I can do my work.

So for me, limiting my older work now is a functional decision based on the work process, and not an arbitrary, " This will be printed in an edition of X."

In the 28 years of making a living selling my photographs, and for the years before that when selling my photographs was something I did as an adjunct to my teaching photography, I have never met a collector who even asked if the edition was limited. I do know, however, that now that photography has gotten to be priced very high--in many cases well into five figures--that gallery owners and buyers of that work expect it to be limited. That is a different world than I inhabit--a world I have not experienced personally.

[Bruce Watson]

I'm with Michael Smith on this one. There is no reason to limit printing in photography. Photography isn't lithography, and shouldn't act like it, IMHO.

Like Michael, I number the prints as I make 'em. When I get to the point that I don't want to make anymore, I don't. End of edition.

Unlike Michael (I think), I increase the prices of an image as it sells. The more it sells, the more it costs. This makes it sort of self-limiting. It makes the people who bought early happy because their print is now worth more. It makes me happy because I participate in the success of the print along with the buyers.

Destroy a negative? Never.

I'm also a collector, and have a few famous and many more not-so-famous names in my collection. I've never asked, nor been interested in, whether a print is part of a limited edition or not. As a collector, my only interests are 1) does the image met my requirements, and 2) does it fit into my budget.

[Michael A.Smith]

The prices for my prints that are now limited increase as the prints are sold. For the newer, as yet unlimited ones, the price for each photograph is the same. And it is a lower price than that for all of the limited prints. This is to encourage sales of the newer work.

Hard to believe, Hogarth and I are in total agreement on this one.

[Ed Burlew]

This is a similar topic but a little different. I have seen every photographer make various sizes of prints all with the same negative and then price the prints depending on some majucal and undiscernable fomula. The point I make is that the photographer SHOULD NOT use the SAME image ofr the 8x10 as the 30x40. I have seen 8x10 that were undumnered and literally in the " bargain bin" ata gallery for $40. that had the SAME image as the limited to ten only, 30x40's that were hanging mounted and framed for $2,500. He did not sell many of the 30x40 at all. And why sould anyone go for the big picture when the photographer had already set the price of the creative at $40.

Now for my two cents. The 30x40 was likely prices right. I argue that the smaller prints contain parts of the big image. not like it was cut up and small parts reframed but, like preliminalry sketches are the smaller prints. The smaller pics could be from different perspectives or different parts of the print. Like, you do a 30x40 of the golden gate bridge and then you do an 8x10 of the rivets. ALso then the smaller prints compliment the 30x40. These prints can be a t the lower price because they are not "as good" and the creative is not as valuable as the image in the 30x40.

[jerry brodkey]

Edward, You can always sell your photographs by the square inch. Once when I was visiting Clarence Laughlin in New Orleans I wanted to buy a 16X20 photograph from him. He calculated the price as twice that of an 11X14 which is close to half the square inches of the one I wanted to buy. But I had to promise to loan it back to him if he wanted to put it in an exhibition.....

[Ed Burlew]

THe difference is the exclucivity of the creative image. TO have an image that is sold by the square inch , well you might as well say by the pound. Like groceries, then you are in the positon of selling copies. yep, copies. Maybe they are technically great and difficult to burn or dodge but they are copies and when we have a society that can do copies easily and the can just push enlarge on the copy nmachine then copies loose value.

My point is that not alot of pohotgraphers put the value on the creative work. TO amke that clear the creative is being able to identify the artistically pleasing composition and then to capture it. The method of capture is then irrelevant, the size of the print is then irrelevant.

It is like the book manuscript it has a value whether it is read once and that one original copy is shared or wheter it is copied by the millions, The first creative mament has a value and then you are just counting copies and money.

So in this model the photograph is valued only on the creative regardless if it's size.

[jerry brodkey]

Ed, you might take a look at Walter Benjamin's " The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" if you haven't already. He discusses authenticity and the value of a work of art.

[Bill_1856]

Sometimes we forget that Photography is a combination of both an ART and a CRAFT. It is not unreasonable to charge (or pay) more for a larger print because of the considerably increased difficulty in making larger prints, particularly VERY large prints -- that's where the craft part is involved.

[tim atherton]

Quote: "I have always numbered my prints with sequential numbers. I know exactly how many were printed, and to whom they were originally sold. Recently, I decided not to reprint any older negatives--right now that means no reprinting of negatives made before 1999. The editions are therefore now limited. Some prints may be limited to fewer than five, others may be 19 or 47 or 62 or some other "odd" number since the editions are now limited to those that were sold plus those that happen to be left in my files. In most cases, very few remain. Relatively new work is unlimited and will be unlimited until there is even newer work.

I always felt that limiting prints was an artificial thing to do. And, in many ways still think that. So why have I done this? I am not getting any younger. There is much new work I would like to do. My time is limited. I would rather spend it making new photographs than reprinting old ones. Artists are interested in making things, not in things made--at least this one is." .....

"I'm with Michael Smith on this one. There is no reason to limit printing in photography. Photography isn't lithography, and shouldn't act like it, IMHO. Like Michael, I number the prints as I make 'em. When I get to the point that I don't want to make anymore, I don't. End of edition."

Well, this thread seems to have answered an unanswered quesion I asked earlier on another thread...

I like the idea of numbering but not artifially limiting/editioning - it seems to make sens of photogorpahy's hybrid nature:

Quote: "I'd like to know if there is a consensus on how, and where, to sign limited edition photographic prints?"

Now have I got this right? I understand the consensus on this list to be that our photogrpahic prints can be regarded as unique handmade individual works (pieces of art if you will). Witness the upset caused when someone suggested that photographs - even "hand made" ones are "mechanical reproductions" (in the general sense that Walter Benjamin meant it in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction - you can make 200 or 2000 prints from the same original negative - even if each one is painstakingly hand crafted it is still a copy).

Yet almost all photogrpahic artists seem to issue their work in numbered series of prints - like a print maker from a printing shop.

Why is this so? Do we want to have our cake and eat it as well? Are our photogrpahic prints well, sort of unique, but not really, not quite? Not as unique as say a drawing or a painting - they are, after all, all copies, reproductions from the same unique negative.

Or have we just basically given in the art and art marketing establishment who believe the above? When in fact we believe that what makes a photograph unique is the craft/hand made nature of each azo cotnact print or platinum print or carefully crafted enlargement - each print individually dodged and burned, bleached and toned. Editions would seem to give the lie to this? So why do we do it?

I've always been in two minds about it. I'm happy to let each print stand when I sell it and not try and artificially enhance it's "uniqueness" by giving it a number in a series. Yet the galleries want numbered (and most of ones contemporaries) editions because that's how you sell photographs and how the market works. But is it a cop out? Just giving in to market pressure?"

[Isaac Crawford]

I only buy prints that are practically limited. In the photo world, this usually involves some sort of alt-process. If it's just too much of a pain in the neck to make many, not many will be made. Plus, most of the hand made images will differ slightly from one to another making them unique.

Isaac

[Aaron Spence]

This is a great discussion. I recently came across the best example I've seen of limiting editions and increasing prices.

Peter Lik's photography is about the best I have even seen in a gallery. He has his own galleries here in Australia and one in the US. He has a page where he lists the final price of limited prints when they sold out. Some of them have gone for US $8500. Not bad!

http://www.peterlik.com.au/valuation.asp you can check it out here.

[QT Luong]

I suppose I haven't dealt with the truly discriminating collectors who buy Micheal Smith's photographs. Once a gentleman called me over the phone to ask whether my editions were limited. He was disappointed to learn they were not, and did not purchase anything. Later, a gallery owner told me that he wouldn't represent prints that are not limited. A few month after my conversation with the gentleman, I decided to limit prints over 11x14 to 500 (way beyond what I hope to sell). The gentleman, upon returning on the web site noticed the change and decided to order a print.

[Michael A.Smith]

Limiting an edition to 500 prints is effectively not limiting it at all. But if that makes the difference to a buyer, who cares.

The buyers of our work know that we are not going to make an ungodly number of prints from any one negative even without it being spelled out for them. The world of serious buyers really does know that when the work of serious and recognized artists is involved--not just for us. Limiting prints only is truly meaningful if the lomit is low--in some cases as low as 5 or 10. Michael Kenna limits his prints to editions of 45, but that is as high as I know of anyone going today.

[QT Luong]

There are at least Peter Lik (mentioned above) and Tom Mangelsen who have editions of more than 500 prints that DO sell out. The resulting increase in valuation seem to indicate that their limiting is not frivolous. I suppose that by Michael's standards their buyers aren't serious, but there seem to be an awful lot of them nevertheless, which to me would sound like some kind of recognition in itself.