Hi, I went to a talk last night at Houston Center for Photography,
and one issue that was discussed was the issue of numbering
photographic prints as an edition, as one would do with intaglio or
lithographic prints.
I do number my photogravures because they are made in the printmaking
tradition of having a plate and making an edition. But sometimes I
resent the fact that I'm not supposed to make any more prints with
these perfectly fine plates. You are even supposed to limit the
number of artist's proofs you make these days it seems!
But I have never numbered my photographs as an edition. I just
figured they were all "open editions." But somebody said that this
is not a good idea if you are selling prints through a gallery.
Indeed, my partner and I were at the Texas gallery over the weekend,
which has a show of photographs of a surrealist garden in Mexico, and
there were some huge, very expensive prints by Sally Mann, in an
edition of only 5! Of course most of us will never be like Sally
Mann in that our photographs will never be worth $50,000 a piece, but
it seems that often in galleries prints ARE numbered as a limited
edition.
I found out recently that the idea of numbering even intaglio prints
is fairly recent. Rembrandt just printed until the plate wore out.
I'm not sure when the idea of editions took hold, but I think it was
in the 18th or 19th century, and the idea was to make prints more
valuable. But I kind of like the idea that prints are cheap and
affordable.
So, just wondering: do you number your prints? Do you make
"editions"? Or do you just print what you want, when you want? Has
anybody ever demanded that you make an edition, in order to make the
prints more valuable, say, a gallery owner?
I guess they are business people too, and it's in their interest to
make your prints seem more valuable.
--shannon ============================================================================================================= To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there.