[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking.

Baren Digest              Friday, 11 December 1998      Volume 05 : Number 370

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From: "Ray Esposito" <brassring@brassring.org>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 09:35:43 -0500
Subject: [Baren 2266] Re: A taxing note 

Richard wrote:
>... printing an edition on one kind of paper, then doing the same 
> thing on another paper  ...
> Many years ago, some French printmakers tried that sort of thing ...

    Without the particulars of the case in your comments I am hesitant
to respond.  But I do not believe it was illegal, although it just may
have been unethical.  At my age (I think I may be somewhat older than
you since I was out of school and the Army in the 60's and living in
Haight-Ashbury), the fog prevents clear recall but wasn't the problem
not that the edition was illegal but that proper taxes and papers were
not filed and that they tried to get the art into this country under a
less taxing part of the code but that attempt was rejected?  The case
eventually went to court and they found in favor of the IRS.

    As to the whole issue of double editions, I find them unethical
unless they are all run at the same time.  Even here I would not do it
but could accept the idea.  For example:  An edition of 100 is done on
Arches and an edition of 100 on Japon.  As long as the public is aware
that the edition is 200 total on two different papers, then it is not
illegal.  Unethical perhaps...stupid maybe...greedy for sure....but not
illegal.

    This whole idea of editions and reproductions is a hot button that
will get people upset no matter how it is handled.  I for one am a great
believer in full disclosure.  I don't care what you do as long as you
tell the truth and be up front and honest with the public.  They can
then make an informed decision.

    I am offended by artists who take an original oil or print or
whatever and have reprints made to sell as a limited edition.  This is
nothing more than a photograph being sold as original art and as far as
I am concerned it is an out and out rip-off.

    Having said that, is it always wrong to do this?

    My opinion is simple.  If you try to sell it at a limited edition of
original fine art - absolutely yes.  If you give full disclosure that it
is simply a photo-reproduciton of an original work - then no. 
Unfortunately, far too many artists take the first route instead of the
later.

    A friend from Kansas was in town this past weekend and I took him to
Annapolis.  I showed him a very well known artist, who will not be
named, who had her own print gallery.  She specializes in bright bold
lithos.  Regardless of what I thought of her art, what I do not admire
was looking at a litho edition of 200 then the same print as a
reproduction of 300 under which was a sign accompanying the framed
sample announcing that this second limited edition, signed (twice of
course, once in the original print and again in the reproduction) was
almost sold out and you should act before Christmas.  As far as I am
concerned, selling this as a limited edition print is a complete
rip-off.

    If you want to take one of your works and put it on cups, t-shirts,
cards or whatever, fine with me.  If you want to take one of your works
and have it reproduced as a print and sell it as a repo, fine with me. 
If you want to take one of your works and have it reproduced to sell as
a limited edition signed print without telling the public just what it
is and that there is nothing original about it, then I have a problem
with that.

    Sorry to go on so long about this but reproductions as original
print limited editions without full disclosure is a sore point with me,
not only as an artist but as a 30 year collector.
  
  Cheers
 
   Ray

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('Off-topic' post deleted ...)

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From: Jean Eger <jeaneger@LanMinds.Com>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 16:50:01 -0800
Subject: [Baren 2268] Re: Baren Digest V5 #369 

Roger said it was illegal to print an edition on one kind of paper and
another edition on another kind.  That is news to me and I will have to
look into it further.  Thanks for the tip.  What if it is a totally
different color paper?  What if you print the print with different colors?
All those restrictions certainly have a chilling effect on creativity.

Jean

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From: Elizabeth Atwood <elizuno@midcoast.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 21:00:03 -0400
Subject: [Baren 2269] Re:Taxing note 

Ray........With you all the way on the ethical question of editioning.
This is the thing that printmakers are up against.  I thought we needed
only to educate the art public.......but perhaps there needs to be
standards raised and put forth for all of us.

ElizAtwood

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From: David Bull <davebull@woodblock.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 11:07:15 +0900
Subject: [Baren 2270] Re: A taxing note 

...snip ...

Just to remind everybody: setting your mail programs to send mail in
'normal' fashion, without any such additions, will help to keep messages
clearly readable by everybody, including 'digest' subscribers, for whom
this stuff can be quite a headache.

Thanks

Dave

P.S.  Key block for #100 was finished off a few minutes ago; now 
on to the colour blocks ...  

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(Series of 'Off-topic' posts deleted ...)

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From: Gary Luedtke <GLuedtke@compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 22:03:40 -0500
Subject: [Baren 2276] Re: A taxing note 

Dave,

Let us know when you finish off the color blocks and we can all pop
champagne bottles or something to help you celebrate the grand finale.  
Is there anything in particular about this print which caused you to save it
for last, as I notice you do not follow the numerical sequence of the
series? 

Gary

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From: Steiner <steiner@mbox.kyoto-inet.or.jp>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 14:12:35 +0900
Subject: [Baren 2277] Down with taxes, up with prints! 

Richard Steiner/Kyoto

Ray replied at length to my taxing problem (Baren 2266),
which came thru on my Mac with those big gapes between paragraphs, but
not 5 feet wide nor a second page indicated.  Cross-platform antics,
again, no doubt.

My initial informant on the French/IRS case was an American woman who
ran the most successful print gallery in Tokyo at that time many years
ago.  I had taken some prints to show her with it in mind of asking her
to handle my work.  I did not do editions then, and this fact set her
off like a firecracker.  In the course of her diatribe, she alluded to
the French printmakers.  This was quite some years ago and so, like
with you, Ray, the details may have slipped away.  In essence, what I
remember her saying was what I wrote in my Baren letter yesterday, that
merely changing paper does not constitute the right to offer the
edition as a brand new thing.  The French did not continue the
numbering from paper to paper, I believe.

You wrote that changing papers but continuing the editioning is mildly
OK is also my opinion. If a printmaker wanted to print an edition of
200 on 200 different sheets of paper (not impossible in Japan, given
the enormous variety of papers available), I would have no particular
problem with that if he numbered the set accordingly, from 1/200 to
200/200.

You mentioned "full disclosure".  I thot that in The States every
editioned print (and maybe uneditioned one, too, for that matter) had
to be accompanied with a paper stating all the details of the print's
production, date, the people involved in its production (designer,
printer, carver, etc.) and provenance to date.  Am I wrong here?

You wrote next that you are "offended by artists who take an original
oil or print or whatever and have reprints made to sell as a limited
edition."  However, here in Japan, and Dave will back me up on this
fully, it is the common and commercially profitable custom to take
famous painter's watercolors or sketches and have limited edition
prints made of them.  In the KYOTO CRAFTSPEOPLE letter I wrote much
earlier, and referred to in my words to Jean, the print I had been
looking at and marveling over was just such a project.  At last year's
Woodblock Craftsmen Exhibition here in Kyoto, the vast majority of the
prints on the walls were just that: reproductions of famous painters'
paintings in woodblock.  As craft, they were unexcelled, brilliant!  As
business, excellent money makers.  As art, nowhere.  (If I understand
you correctly, your mentioning of "photographs" includes also the whole
print medium, right?)

Yes, not only the public but also we printmakers need educatin', as
Elizabeth urged (Baren 2269).  But the bottom line is what you referred
to indirectly, just plain honesty in dealing with others.  When we get
to that state of human development, then not only this vexing
editioning problem will go away, but a whole raft of other ills will
disappear.

Jean continues to refer to my as Roger (Baren 2269).  This
is alright, any name is OK except Fred, as I mentioned before.

In my opinion and others', too, I am sure, printing on different papers
is OK if the editioning is consistent, as I said above.  As for
uneditioned prints, print on anything at hand.  Changing pigments,
however, is another matter.  If you change colors, then issue the
prints as a new project, as a new edition, than you will be in trouble,
surely ethically if not legally.  I hope more Barenettes will chime in
with their opinions on this.  I for one want to clear up this matter
once and for all.  Hey, if I read the correspondence right, this Baren
Forum is getting some clout in the print world. How about stepping
forward and making some waves in the print world?  If there are no
standards in some areas, how about addressing those problems and
solving them?  Power to the Printers!  

Steiner/Kyoto

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End of Baren Digest V5 #370
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