As a gallery owner, I get confronted all the time with issues brought up by my artists that take thought and patience to figure out. One of the issues that recently came up stemmed from a conversation that I had with one my photographers. He was trying to make the argument that, unlike painters who make money on the sale of their originals, photographers should make more money on their giclee sales to make up that difference.
I don’t agree with this thinking at all…at least not when it comes to photography that is reproduced as giclees. The reason for my disagreement comes directly from my role as an art dealer. I’m the one facing the art-buying public on a daily basis. And believe me when I tell you that the average buyer does not differentiate between a giclee made from a scanned painting or one made from a photograph. All they see is a limited edition giclee print of a captivating image that they may want to buy. If I were to tell them that the photographic one costs more than the other because the photographer didn’t have an original to sell, they would not be able to wrap their heads around that. In all good conscious I would never be able to put forth such an argument. However, this dilemma only arises when photographers choose to reproduce their work as giclees.
If photographers want to charge more for their work, it is my advice that they choose a different form of reproduction. For example, I represent photographer who reproduces his manipulated images on brushed aluminum sheets. Currently he has created a highly unique series based on a stamp motif where the printed sheets have scalloped edges like a postage stamp. His name is Andre Van Der Kerkhoff. He is an Australian artist who is starting to make major inroads into the New York art market (look forward to a blog devoted to this artist in the near future).
Painters are truly limited in the type of reproduction techniques open to them. After all, if artists are trying to replicate the look of their original oil or acrylic paintings done on canvas then giclee reproductions printed on canvas is by far their best choice. By contrast photographers have a plethora of reproduction substrates open to them. By choosing a different reproduction technique photographers can price their work any way they wish, thus eliminating any problems of comparison.
