Value of giclee prints

My gallery was part of my business in Lido Marina Village, Newport Beach, from the mid-90's to 2002. Or it could be at Wentworth Gallery in Facist Island or Laguna Beach (on Forest Ave.) If we met through MLG, it would have to be from 1988 to 1993. I also was the director of Harbor Gallery in Sunset Beach around 2003-4.

I would like to see a news clipping of Robert Bane's art business demise as well as hundreds of other people who are still taking a shower (I actually never got that close and only went to two openings at the old Tower Gallery, his wife's business).

My gallery was part of my business in Lido Marina Village, Newport Beach, from the mid-90's to 2002. Or it could be at Wentworth Gallery in Facist Island or Laguna Beach (on Forest Ave.) If we met through MLG, it would have to be from 1988 to 1993. I also was the director of Harbor Gallery in Sunset Beach around 2003-4.

I would like to see a news clipping of Robert Bane's art business demise as well as hundreds of other people who are still taking a shower (I actually never got that close and only went to two openings at the old Tower Gallery, his wife's business). I suppose it might be searched through Google news.

The news article I could Google were all Art Business News, and, of course, favorable since it is a trade journal.

Wiz-could you summarize the last event? I only read the last page ansd Im interested in learning.

The news articles to date are LA Times newspaper calendar section, LA Business Journal and Dunn & Bradstreet online media. Indeed, any demise you wish to learn of, would not come until the bankruptcy is concluded upon---it now 22 months old and appears to be extremely well financed as if by magic. A few links as follows:
1. ^ "Sorayama Prevails Over Art Dealer, Mike Boehm, September 22, 2007, LA Times, http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/22/entertainment/et-pinupart22
2. ^ Ari Case, Anne Riley-Katz, Nov 12, 2007, Los Angeles Business Journal http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m5072/is_46_29/ai_n21156527
3. ^ Hajime Sorayama wins a $2.3 million judgment, Laurin & Associates, http://www.laurinlawfirm.com/updates.html
There are more updates at www.sorayama.net

Our Asian friend had a gallery in Newport Beach near yours. We maybe have stopped by yours too---we know the names. BTW, you mention hundreds have taken a shower and already the artists you recommended are helping. If you can have just a few of them, that are most viable (e.g. collectors or gallerys) write us their stories or give details, it would be useful to stop the time wasting BK game playing that the professionals are abusing in plain site. We may be contacted too.

Are you saying that she (wife) owns Old Towne Gallery (SIC Tower Gallery)....we thought only Tamara Bane Gallery?

This was back in the 80's when she owned Tower Gallery and I don't even know if it still exists, as she changed the name and the location to Tamara Bane.

Was his gallery on Via Lido? I was the only gallery at that time on Via Oporto.

I'm losing it -- it's almost seven pm here and just had dinner and fed the cat and the discus, and my head is rapidly shutting down. If I watch an episode of "Criminal Minds," I doubt I will know what the hell is going on.

Hello my friend,
I wondered what episode of ?Criminal Minds" you watched. I think it is perhaps you an only you who may know this answer or how I may obtain it. The Fine Print Act of California reguires registry of editions. Fraudsters never do this properly particularly on the ones they made contraband and or counterfeits from nor over producing edition runs. Where is this registry? It should be a state agency but state archives of CA refer one to US Copyright office which also appears not to be correct place. Any ideas on this?

I don't remember if it was a new one on CBS or the many re-runs on ION HD and A&E HD.

There's no California state agency protecting the consumer from print edition over-runs -- the consumer agency has been gone for many years and it's under the auspices of the Attorney General of California. That law as I remember was passed in the late 80's, not shortly after the Dali fake print fiasco, but at the time MLG and MLLE (Martin Lawrence Limited Editions) had their own legal department. They had to conform by changing their Certificate of Authenticity and leave out any appraised value which was the most important change. I believe it also restated the law about destroying any plates or masters. There was still a loophole that allowed a small number of overruns for the purpose of replacement in case of theft, damage or total destruction of a limited edition print. They were left unnumbered in the publisher's vault. I actually did replace a Delacroix print which faded from just reflected daylight! I had to send the customer's print back to the Delacroix publisher in order to get it replaced. It was destroyed and the artist signed and numbered a new one.

The laws are still weak and not nearly as stringent as the art laws in Europe, for instance. Prints produced in Europe and marketed there have to be from plates created by the artist or the artist working directly with the master printer. There are limitations on what technology can be used also, otherwise they are classified as posters and can only be signed by the artist in person (of course, not numbered). Prints in the US and Japan, but not confined to those countries, can be produced from a photograph of an original work without the artist ever stepping foot into the studio producing the print. With any process, especially giclee, that really makes them what Bill Maher once exposed on his show many years ago -- reproductions, not original prints. They can't be designated as original prints on the certificate either. Usually, the C of A in America or Japan states "limited edition print," when it should state "limited edition print reproduction from an original work."

Excellent information and very helpful. Thank you again Lightwizard.

I'm glad even if I brought only a glimmer of enlightenment. The art business is a tough business and it's usually the toughest on the artists.

It is tough when the ones the artist most trust create a shadow unregistered black market business in counterfeits and contraband that public companies on the internet allow to auction it. It becomes incredible and beyond tough when there are attorneys at good sized law firms and those in vital court officer positions participate in burying the evidence and making a pay day out of it. It hurts all kinds of collectors both young and elderly and it hurts shareholders when tolerated by public companies like in the case of eBay vs tiffany.

Anyone who buys art or antiques on E Bay are not playing with a full deck. My point is that the laws are too loose between what is plainly commercial art (some of it just plain junk decorative, or should I state craft because a lot of it is what you might find on dinnerware or wallpaper), and what is fine art. Reproduced prints are not fine art -- they are commercial reproductions whether signed and numbered or not. The US law does state that one can label anything a "limited edition," which is a very hot hook term for peddlers of nothing more than signed and numbered posters. It's what fine art galleries have done for at least a seventy years -- produce a print that is usually limited more-or-less according to commercial lithography pricing (usually making a separation and a plate cuts off at the expense of producing such a poster for a minimum of 1500 copies). The laws are very gray in the US and in Japan (although the buyers there have perhaps been even more gullible over the years than the US). They need to go further towards black against white. An artist who is either a master printer himself or has one in his studio (as Warhol did at one time), produces a hand-made plate -- metal, stone, silk screen or other fine art media -- and is instrumental in pulling the entire edition either himself or with studio assistants, keeps the numbering under 99 in the edition, and then markets it in reputable fine art galleries is producing fine art. An artist simply sends the original art to be scanned by computer, sprayed on whatever paper by the giclee process and the signs and numbers the edition is not producing fine art. The original may be fine art depending on who you confer with -- a museum curator or a commercial publisher. You're going to get different responses. I've had friendly connections to several qualified fine art appraisers in the past and did not have to pay anything to get, say, a Martin Lawrence serigraph and what was the answer? It was barely worth the paper and ink it was printed on. The artist signature, by-and-large, is hardly worth anything more than $ 5.00 which was what MLLE paid artists to sign a print. Laughable? It's really still going on, although the price the public pays usually includes custom framing which adds a huge ticket price to an already inflated print price. The custom framing is usually a break-even or a loss for a publisher -- they have to make it up by over-pricing the print. The markup at MLLE was eight to ten times the actual price of production the print. It doubt that has changed depending on how big the publisher is. I have no doubt that Chalk & Vermillion still uses that same mark-up. They have primarily stuck to serigraphs on canvas or gesso board as the "top-of-the-line," but it's still a product that when the customer walks out the door with it, it's worth is lower than 25% on the street (considering a secondary market buyer usually doesn't want the framing or to pay much for it because it's actually a garage sale item), as low as 10%.

I understand what you are saying is really that the one creating the limited prints must be a talented artisan that can create by hand and mind the re-creation of an original as an original print. I still have those ole litho stones around. At the same time tools change with advancing technologies so it becomes an issue of recognizing the rare photoshop artisan from one who merely uses filters and shortcuts of the software application. This becomes very difficult (you need a non artist high level technical expert to recognize such special talent. This may be along the lines when photography technology came out of European artisan technical masters (never considered artists) but later in the USA somehow photography became recognized as art. It was and remains rare for any artist to come close to matching the skills of the schooled and trained European photographer yet it did happen where artist photographers came close enough and some overcame this lower tech skill level with their creativity with just gaining a sufficient understanding of the "new" technology.

I think what you are really getting at is that the human race's marketing types have jumped upon the new technology, abusing it without prudence. Simply for the sake of a quick buck in most instances. This fits your explanation of loose standards in the USA / Japan. It may be that the slowing economy will help give time to catch up on intrinsic value of art and sciences. This would be a good thing. A utopia of art as the marketing hype is yawned at ( a waste of one's budget) and people look more closely at what is true art. Putting standards on limited editions (whether computer generated or otherwise)---just like the banking regulations tossed aside now reappearing---

Warhol, and worse Dali, never really gave thought to over - producing their prints. One owuld think that eBay is merely Dali prints reincarnate. For 10 plus years, I wondered inside as those Warhol prints rose to an apex price knowing how many my ex girl friend's family had amassed in their home storage. Thinking now why did I break up----LOL. Then one day---POOF! All going back to the mean pricing in the years ahead.

My thought is -- buy a giclee of a classical, romantic, impressionistic, expressionistic, modern master at a museum shop (supporting the institution) and spend the bucks on the custom framing. It won't be worth any more or any less than the flood of second-rate art reproductions on the market today by artist that have no hope to ever be in a museum, let alone have any real intrinsic value. Good professional interior designers never buy this stuff -- they know the money can be better spent on other things to make a home or office a beautiful environment.

You are so right and inspiring. We will try to do this with MOMA and MOKA for a piece in this federal court case since artist is in their permanent collections. In fact, one of the stolen pieces I'd like to run by you if only I had your email.

Not to lose any valuable expert advice, may I ask what is the best way to post stolen arts in USA and or international ? The courts based the embezzling ruling on what they found to be common larceny---it sounds like stolen art to me. It feels that way to artist. Is that what this gallery / publisher actually did--the word "conversion" in context of embezzling seems to mean stolen.

I'm still reading, with no data to offer either of you, just interest.

I'm still reading, with no data to offer either of you, just interest.

If it's crossed state lines or left the country, it's the FBI jurisdiction for stolen art of significant value -- that's who was called in on the Dali telephone marketing felony. They raided an office across the bay from the Martin Lawrence gallery at Lido Marina Village where I worked. They were brought in on the gallery chain in the 90's who was marketing multiple "French chateau" paintings that were obviously factory produced in France (it's illegal to market them there, but not illegal to import them to the US). I doubt since I am retired and no longer that close to the art industry, I wouldn't be of any help on stolen art. That is FBI territory.

If you did file a police report on valuable stolen art, it's undoubtedly already on the Interpol list.

I'm not sure what this publishing gallery used this "conversion" for -- was it a print converted into another media? That's against the law unless it's stated on each certificate that it is available in another media.