Incollect Magazine - Issue 3

Issue 3 114 www.incollect.com Communications Manager of Lyons Gallery in Australia — they have several locations around the country selling Pop art prints among other things. “You don’t need expertise to find pleasure, meaning in the work. Pop a rt’s intertwinement with contemporar y and popular culture has kept it relevant throughout the years. It presents imagery to the audience they not only enjoy but can easily relate to.” Pop artists in general embraced the medium of printmaking with its democratic ability to inexpensively replicate multiple versions of the same image, employing innovative techniques such as monoprinting, stencils, photo-silkscreen, as well as the traditional printmaking methods such as drypoint, etching lithography linoleum and woodcuts. Warhol was a pioneer, a master formal innovator, and frequently experimented with other techniques such as hand-embellishing his images with diamond dust. Warhol loved repetition — he even dated twins once, his biography reveals. He loved the idea of coming up with a design and making a series so the image didn’t sit just in one person’s home. He wanted to spread the design among many collectors. He was panned in the beginning for this approach to art, people said it was just Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997), This Must Be the Place , 1965. Offset Lithograph, 21⅜ x 16 inches. Signed on the plate and in pencil lower right. Published by Leo Castelli Gallery, NYC. Reference: Corlett III.20. Image courtesy of Ro Gallery. about making money. But he truly believed in making things everyone could have and afford. Lichtenstein also loved printmaking and the bulk of his work bought and sold today is prints, with 13,381 records of sales of prints and multiples documented in the artnet database. His highest auction record is over $95 million for an oil on canvas painting set at Christie’s in 2015, though when it comes to prints around $700,000 is the limit — the record for his most expensive print is “Nude with Blue Hair” from 1994 sold for $769,000 at Rago/ Wright in 2021. High edition numbers and a voluminous number of popular prints can often depress prices but demand for his work remains voracious. Among the other Pop artists Jasper Johns has a solid print market, his images of the American flag, in an edition of 65, from 1973, regularly sell for above $1.5 million at auction. Tom Wesselman multiples are also popular with collectors, with editions of his enamel paint on cut out steel wall panels selling for above $200,000. Meanwhile the unique pieces have reached as high as $2 million. David Hockney’s now famous swimming pool paintings have been translated into prints of various editions and all sorts of sizes and regularly sell at auction for close to $1 million. Among the second generation of Pop and street artists, Banksy and Basquiat stand out for the extraordinary prices paid for their prints at auction. Basquiat in particular has a strong print market and in 2018 “Untitled (Return of the Central Figure)”, 1983, a silkscreen and ink on canvas in an edition of 10 sold for $2.5 million. Banksy prints and multiples have reached over $4 million for spray paint on canvas and metal, the works sometimes signed, sometimes not and all in large editions. A 2004 screenprint on paper, edition of 88, signed, sold for $1.5 million at Sotheby’s in London in 2021. Traditionally prints do not appreciate at the same pace as original works of art. That has changed in the past few years according to Constance Aehlig from the Bernard Jacobson Gallery in London, who has seen in the past 3 year “an uptick” in demand for prints by 20th century masters. “Everyone wants to be part of the art world today,” she says. “The general audience for art is increasing everywhere at a rapid rate and prints are being recognised as valuable works and frankly are now the only ones you can buy by a recognised artist given everything else has become so expensive.” More availability and a range of prices, along with the brand recognition of the Pop artists, make Pop prints a good entry point for new buyers in the market, Aehlig says. “There is no risk, the artist is a known quantity, the print is a known quantity.” Color is a major selling point in the print market today, she also notes. “It can be difficult to sell black and white prints but everyone wants color in their house. Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Bansky, Jean Michel Basquiat, Jasper Johns, Tom Wesslman or Keith Haring — they all look very attractive to the contemporary eye. Color is important.”