Editioning

[Michael R]

Editioning makes sense if you have gallery representation. I personally don't care to make more than 5-10 prints of any given image anyway. I will have moved on. On the other hand, if your prints sell for good money, why limit your income? I once heard a story about Brett Weston being asked what he was printing in the darkroom. He was printing his Holland Canal image and he replied, I'm printing money.

AA did an edition of 1000 of Fern Spring.

[Drew Wiley]

Did AA formally "number edition" any image? Or ever actually print a thousand of anything? He claimed the most he actually did was around 360 of "Moonrise". And I'm pretty sure no unsold extras of those are rotting somewhere in an attic. His trust might number official press reproductions, which tend to be very well done. Carleton Watkins ended up in the insane asylum after nearly all his most prized prints burnt up during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. I would end up in the asylum if I even had to print a hundred of any single image. But some might have their own "Fermented Spring" way of dealing with that kind of monotony.

[Pieter]

Some years ago David Vestal wrote an article on this topic. Seems that those who do individual prints in "unlimited number" seldom print more than 5 copies of any particular negative. Fewer than the "Limited Edition" series done by many.

If one is making prints by hand it is much different than doing so with digital printers. Hand coating papers, hand printing in the darkroom, carbon prints - all are much more closely aligned with the artist and it is nearly impossible to get two that are exactly the same. In ways this makes them even more valuable. No run of 10 to 500 at the push of a button.

As Drew says, materials change and over time "The LOOK" may have to as well when newer material comes out and older is no longer available. Warm tone papers for darkroom now are very different from decades ago. Our choices in most darkroom papers commercially available are nowhere near what the used to be. Some newer materials may be technically "better" but that is not what most are after when they print their work. At least no after they have matured in their craft and art.

I have been printing on Ilford Multigrade FB Classic glossy for years now and that's what I like. My hope is unless Ilford goes under, they will still make that one.

[Michael R]

I don’t know if there were numbered editions of other individual images (the portfolios were obviously numbered) but I know with certainty about the Fern Spring edition of 1000 prints which he did himself (of course this was the end of the 1970s by which time he had assistants in the darkroom manning the trays etc.).

Did AA formally "number edition" any image? Or ever actually print a thousand of anything? He claimed the most he actually did was around 360 of "Moonrise". And I'm pretty sure no unsold extras of those are rotting somewhere in an attic. His trust might number official press reproductions, which tend to be very well done. Carleton Watkins ended up in the insane asylum after nearly all his most prized prints burnt up during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. I would end up in the asylum if I even had to print a hundred of any single image. But some might have their own "Fermented Spring" way of dealing with that kind of monotony.

[Drew Wiley]

Well, assistant-made prints don't really count. Thousands of those were made of of his most popular images from the original negs. Alan Ross is still doing that. Best Studio (now Ansel Adam's Gallery in Yosemite Valley) sold portfolios of 10 of those for $40 back when I was a youngster (only $4 per print). They're still not worth much, at least in comparison with prints he made himself. How much he was still physically able to do in his 70's, I can't say, or whether or not your referenced Fern Sprint edition was somehow in a gray zone in that respect. Someone else would have to chime in. Moot point anyway.

[Michael R]

No, the Fern Spring edition was printed by him and is the real McCoy. What I mean by assistants is that by the late 70s he had so many print orders to fill that he had an assistant with him in the darkroom pretty much all the time taking care of the more “assembly line” parts of the process. This was the case at that time whether he was printing Fern Spring, Monolith, Moonrise etc. Of course the assistants also did other things.

Last I remember (going back maybe ten years or so) prints from this Fern Spring edition consigned to galleries would retail for about $5,000.

Well, assistant-made prints don't really count. Thousands of those were made of of his most popular images from the original negs. Alan Ross is still doing that. Best Studio (now Ansel Adam's Gallery in Yosemite Valley) sold portfolios of 10 of those for $40 back when I was a youngster (only $4 per print). They're still not worth much, at least in comparison with prints he made himself. How much he was still physically able to do in his 70's, I can't say, or whether or not your referenced Fern Sprint edition was somehow in a gray zone in that respect. Someone else would have to chime in. Moot point anyway.

[Drew Wiley]

His "mural prints" were also mostly physically printed by others; in that case, by an appropriately equipped commercial lab, yet under his immediate input or supervision. Otherwise, his health would have been winding down by the late 70's. He had been a heavy smoker and drinker most of his life - not a good recipe for old age health. But I never heard anyone giving a damn about some alleged edition number on his own prints. Sometimes just the opposite. For example, they'll pay a premium for an especially early version of Moonrise just because it looks different from all the later ones which better reflected his own expectations from that negative.

[Salmo22]

Not than long ago, I was at the Etheron Gallery in Tucson and listened to a conversation between Terry Etherton and a collector regarding one of Mark Klett's "Saguaro" prints. Editioning was never discussed. But they spent some quality time discussing the fact that Klett made this particular image using Kodabromide paper.

[Paul Ron]

editions only count if you destroy the negative at the end of the run and certify it will never be printed again.

[Tin Can]

Agree!

editions only count if you destroy the negative at the end of the run and certify it will never be printed again.