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I picked up this Wyeth print at an estate auction. It’s numbered #177. I don’t know how excited to be about it. I want to describe it accurately on ebay and not misrepresent it. Thank you!
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Yeah, sold prices prices starts at several thousand dollars, but quickly go to a couple hundred or less. Be interested to hear why a few go for big money.
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Ok WBird: I am going to skip the ‘wall of text” on telling the difference between an “offset press lithograhic reproduction” and a real art print whether it be a real hand drawn stone lithograph, etching aquatint, serigraph [silk screen], lino cut, wood block. All of these having identifiable characteristics to them. But please search this site for lengthy discussions on offset repro’s.
But the first thing to do is to use a loupe, hand held magnifyer, anything that will give you a magnified view. Usually 6x power and up, preferably 10x power. Search linen testers on Ebay, Amazon and buy one. Many plastic ones only cost a 4 to 6 bucks. Now look at the print and if you see small round dots it is an offset reproduction. I bet dollars to donuts that is what it is.
The name on the back, the fact it is stamped and not pencil signed on the front in the margins I also bet that is nothing more than an inventory control number and the artist name just for the store personnel. A stamping like this adds no value. If a reproduction then not much value either.
If I had it I would first throw my loupe on it and if a “repro”, I would take it apart and either use the frame myself or sell just the frame. A repro that size with nothing on the margins or written in pencil, a real signature, date or title has no more value than framing up an over size post card, which BTW, many framers will do all the time, or they take pictures of famous artist and cut the pages out of large art books, mat and frame them and sell them as home decor. Remember they are framers! But if that is masking tape of that print on the back, then not much of a decent framer either.
Without close examination of the matting, if straight or bevel cut, French matting, double matted, linen surface, and the quality of the mitered corners, are nail holes filled with framers putty, proper wiring on the back, non-glare glass I can’t tell you if the frame is of a high quality thus price. But some moulding contours [and yours seems to be tri-level like triple crown moulding in a house] can run at a high price per linear inch and linear foot. My father in law was a professional framers and he had moulding 8, 10, 12 feet long [called lineals] that he paid $6 to $15 per foot for, especially if they hand done gold leaf on them.
So dig out that magnifying glass and take a look.
For fun, as you look at those dots [which I still bet dollars to dounuts] you will find, think about this. You will only see the dots printed in Blue, red, yellow and black [CMYK] and if so, then ask yourself how are you seeing greens, tans, browns, purples, when there is no ink used on the print that are those colors. LOL :-). That too has been discussed at length in one of my previous posts.
I could be completely wrong.. but remember I have a lot of donuts [plus about 50 years as an artist, master print maker and commercial printer] riding on my guess you will just find a bunch of dots.
Now if there is a real pencil signed Wyeth either Andrew or some of his family members, then Bingo! Also Andrew did his works in watercolor and egg tempera. There are no dots in any of those mediums again LOL 🙂 and the only way to get prints is to litho repro them.
Think of this as far as value goes. A hand done limited edition takes weeks or months to do a small amount of prints. Usually 250 to 500 signified by the numbering system of 1/250 to 250/250. Huge editions are very frowned upon in the real art community. Not even 1,000 print editions are of much interest unless the pencil signture is there, and then you are buying, collecting or selling and autograph.
A big thing to think about. American offset press run at speeds of 750 to 1,000 impressions per hour. If you print a run of repros to make any money, to offset the cost of set up, proofing, ink mixing, break down and clean up that is going to take a days worth of work. That time frame will produce an edition of over 5,000 to 7,500 prints. With every print over 500 the value starts to dimenish on top of the fact it is a repro. Modern repros don’t have much more value than a printed poster. $5 to $15 tops and then a old 60’s poster will be more value than a repro by a known artist.
All of this is based on a thought the artist is involved. Have you ever seen a reproduction of the Mona Lisa. I have. Plenty of them. All a publisher needs is poermission from the owner of the original, usually a museum of high end art, and then take a good photograph of the original in the museum ot in a studio [under security of course] and Bingo agagin. Another 10,000 prints of the Mona Lisa is created.
Most framed art we find at auctions and estate sales are not woth too much. I bought about 10 framed works about two weeks ago. The seller asked where I was going to hang all of them and I answered honestly, I am not, I just want the frames and glass, I am going to throw the repors away. Junky European harbor and village scenes.
So there you go, a lot to think about, some home work to do and of course search and check out the terms, art repos, half tone dots, fake art, color theory and a few other terms here on SL and take a read. I think the SL members have accumulated a fair amount of information about repors’ limited edition prints, wall art and the such.
And always remember a phrase I took from the Danbury Mint [and others] and added the Mike touch.. Limited edition plates, coins, medallions..yeah, sure, limited to everybody that wants one. as long as orders are coming in they are printing, pressing, pouring, casting and moulding. But funny thing, when the sales drop out, then the manufacturing of slock art stops and they come up with another limited edition, limited time only, scam to run on the American public.
Hey another Wall of text, mixed with a Dennis Miller rant at the end. I love it when I have a few minutes to spare. Keeps my juices flowing. 🙂 🙂
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
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My wife chimed in a little while ago, and said but what if that is an original opaque tempera painting framed up. So look closely and if no dots, then maybe take it to a local art gallery [not a hobby Lobby frame shop] and see what they say.
Or you can send a photo of it to Sotheby’s in NY. They have a website where you can submit photos, then they will ask a few questions, be ready for the, “Do you see dots” question. And from there they will provide more info or maybe want to see it directly.
Good luck and who knows, like Jay said, maybe you have a found treasure worth thousands. Good Luck!
mike at MDCGFA
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This reply was modified 3 months ago by
MDC Galleries.
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Look at it at a slant, and see if there’s any difference in reflectivity of the different areas, or slightly raised areas. I do this to check watercolours.
Even so, there’s some odd prints out there. I’ve got three works by William “Bird’s Nest” Hunt. A presumed original, with gouache layered over a thick surface of white paint. A litho reproduction overlaid with gouache. And a “hand-finished lithograph by W. Giles after Hunt” (label on back). The prints have a kind of fine stippled look from (I think) the chalk used to draw on the stone.
I sold a large framed drawing on Saturday that had as a background hand-drawn woodgrain. The artist had drawn in about two square feet of realistic grain- took me a few minutes to work out it wasn’t a woodblock print!
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Yes AF, this is certainly something to look for and especially in today’s world with the advent of the Giclee. A multi-color high end ink jet printing process. The one we had in our plant had 26 Piezo ink jet nozzles that were connected to 26 1-gallon containers of color. So, we could apply 26 colors per pass of the print head. We then could raster those heads so the ink jet spray patterns were over lapping and even experts could hardly tell if the print was an original or not. Add to this the inks were archival quality with a life span against fading of 100 years or more. Then applied to archival canvas, paper or board, we could produce museum quality reproductions of original work. Then when we completed an edition, we would give the prints to the artist to pencil sign, number, date and title.
Then to your point, in some cases, artist did want to go back over the top of the prints and do hand drawn embellishments or hand done texturing. That is why when we did what we contracted for as an “edition” of prints, we required in our contract that the artists had to come to our plant and do the signing in our artists lounge. We had a “day room” set up for them with tables, rolling carts, pencils, electric sharpener, slip sheeting, snacks, coffee and drinks and supplied an assistant to help the artist. Without this control we could not provide Certification of the edition.
But today’s variation of the ink jet Giclee is the “print on Demand” concept. This allows the artist, once his piece has been scanned and stored in the main computer, to request and have printed, art prints “one at a time as needed” and thus a single repro can be produced “on demand” and shipped to them. By allowing this we had no control over the integrity of the edition, could not stop the artist from creating over runs. And the point you make, from re-working the surface with additional media, markings.
That is not necessarily a bad thing. It just makes the print into what is called a “monotype”. Many artists, including myself do this. I will create an original series of serigraphs [say 20 prints], then go back and re-work them one at a time and end up with 20 individuals, similar yet different pieces all of which can technically be called “originals” because each one is worked over differently.
It is this new approach that allows artist to sell “originals” on both Ebay and Etsy, by scanning their original and storing with a printer. Then post the original on Ebay and Etsy, title it as a “Custom” original acrylic or oil abstract, modern painting and list it with a 2-week handling time. Now when the Sale occurs, the artist orders just one repro on canvass. It ships to him in couple of days, he then stretches it on stretcher bars, puts it on his easel or work table, then he re-works over the surface changing some areas, covering others, adding transparent tinting over large areas is very popular. This now makes this one piece unique and different from the original, then lastly with clear brush texturing going over the whole surface with a clear varnish in turn hiding the process you talk about, being able to see re-worked areas by holding the work at an angle. Also, if an overall texture is added by using a smaller brush, it will make it look like it was made all at one time as a single original painting.
This also will fill in or level out any high and low spots, making the surface more uniform in height. Museums can detect this process by using black lights on the artwork in a dark room and by micron measurements of the artworks thickness overall. But this would never be done on the many what is being called, original acrylic artwork, in the wild, being sold on Ebay and Etsy. Too costly.
America is full of “wall decor” repro prints. And if not, then China has an art district [look up China art factories] and watch the videos of Chinese artist knocking out “originals” repeatedly by hand.
But yes, one can see things on the surface or artwork, but to the average layman at an estate sale or auction, without being able to get the piece out of the frame, out from under the glass and giving close examination to both paint, ink or paper it is hard to tell.
I approach most art we buy out in the wild as it is all a cheap repro and has a value of the frame and glass only, until I take a very close look at it. Then at our local auction house I do occasionally find a piece worth paying a little bit more. At estate sales, buyer beware of paying high dollar for “wall decor”.
Tip for those shopping at local thrift stores, flea markets, and supposedly antique malls. A tip to be able to tell a cheap litho reproduction from 25 feet away. If you ever see a framed piece of art that has an overall blue, [cyan], purplish look to it. Keep walking. It is a 4-color process litho print done in CMYK inks and the red is the most unstable color and next is the yellow. The reason the framed print looks over all purple-bluish is that the red and yellow has faded due to sunlight hitting the surface. Those cheap litho inks, like the ink and presses used for magazine publishing will be gone in 12 to 24 months, especially if subjected to sun light. I see these all the time and they stick out from yards away from me.
Oh, and any print that has two signatures is usually a repro. The original signature on the original painting is copied when it is scanned to reproduce, then after a cramp load are printed, the publisher gets the artist to pencil sign it. That falls into the category, for me at least, of buying a poster at a concert, then getting one of the musicians to autograph it for you. Well it may become valuable, then maybe not. Does anyone have a signed poster by Milli Vanilli [ugh], and if so, who cares!
So, yes, there is just a myriad of things to know and watch out for when buying any type of art. And I really don’t call what I see art by a technical creation term, but I use repros, wall decor, house pictures and therein lies the value… as a pretty picture, if you like the subject matter, you want it in your home, then buy that pretty picture and hang it. But to think that most pictures will be valuable art, is not the case, in most circumstances, but it does happen.
Stick to original old oil paintings, look at the back for brown old canvass edges, look for nails not staples, no tape and surface condition. A 20 x 24 or larger original oil of a pleasant scene can go for several hundred dollars. And of course, if it is a known artist then more because of the reputation, name and original signature [autograph] on the work.
Aaahh, I just love the first hour of the morning with my two cups of coffee. Gets my mind flowing…
Make it a great day all…. 🙂
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
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Oh.. AF.. most hand drawn stone lithography [limestone] are drawn on with either liquid or crayon form of Tusche. It is a wax based product that comes in abottle that can be used like paint on the stone and diluted for various shades and puddling effect or in sqaure crayon sticks or litho crayon pencils of varying hardness to achieve varying gradations of color. All of these are black in color and painted and drawn on the stones.
The reason they are wax is that the process of stone lithography is one of etching the drawn images into the stone surface with acid, then removing the wax images after the etching, the using gum arabic or baulm to cover the non etched areas. Then the stone is flooded with water using a sea sponge and ink hand applied using a roller which will only stick to where the wax once was and which is now the etched raw stone surface.
This whole process has to be done for each color. The stone has to be passed through a hand crank press and reinked after each sheet is printed. A 22 color print [most I have ever done for a client] that was 20×24 in a limited edition of 250 1/250 to 250/250 took 5,500 inkings and 5,500 passes through the press. I can [or used to could in my youth-LOL] re-fresh and re-prep and ink a stone in about 5-10 min. per sheet or about 650 hours or about 4 months with out overtime or weekends.
That same edition in our plant at the time of my retirement could be printed as a Giclee edition, archival everything in about a week with ink refills and substrate replacement [rolls of canvass]
Aaah …. these last posts remind me of being just like back in the University Classroom.. BTW I taught print making [etching, stone lithography, serigraphy [silk screening=out dated name], figure drawing, mechanical drawing and contemporary abstract painting back in my early youth.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
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Hi Mike- thanks for your expertise- would you care to weigh in on this ? The seattle Public Library can’t find it in their records, but believe it came to them via donation, and because it was not a PNW artist, it was given to “friends of the library” to be sold. This was a local auction find or me. It does fit with several other Reginald Marsh works depicting girls on a ferry. But I can’t find this one anywhere. I can’t believe its real, but it does hit a lot of your points regarding tempura. Looks like some sort of etching with watercolor? what do you think?
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I certainly would but have had a time crunch all afternoon with subs on our house projects.
I have marked your post and will see what tomorrow afternoon brings. Have to meet the graders up at the lots at 7:30 am and unsure when I will get back. But I would like to post a few observations.
Those dot like marks are not repro halftone dots. That is the medium being deposited on the high surface of the canvas knuckles. The over under weave [weft and waf] of the fabric. Those may be deposited by use of a dry brush technique or a hard marking surface material such as charcoal or conte’ crayon [which is more likely on canvass] or it is the dry brush being pulled over the knuckles.
I will address the back and more tomorrow or the next day.
Too bad Jay, you are not close by, I have 7 or 8 large hard wood trees that were in the house box that had to come out. Good firewood. Maybe I can give it away on Craigslist or something.
mc at mdcgfa
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Thanks Mike, it all makes sense when you explain it with regard the medium. Those dots were perplexing indeed. Can’t wait for the next lesson. You Rock!
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Hey Big Sally!
What’s happening with your Reginald Marsh painting? I haven’t been able to log in for a while (this is Habnab f/k/a Kate depending on how far back we’re going…) — I almost fell over when I saw your images. How exciting!!!!
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Hey Mike – loved your sharing knowledge and experience. I just recently posted a question about framed prints (keep or dump the frame?). The prints are some of the earliest examples of chromolithography in the US. Anyway, I produced these images for my listing and the second one shows enough detail to see what a stone lithograph looks like (dots, but different from the little dots you are talking about):
1852Â FRUITS OF AMERICA. CHARLES M. HOVEYÂ MONTMORENCY CHERRY
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Thanks Mike, yeah wax crayons. I’ve got a copy of Bamber Gascoigne’s “How To Identify Prints” but I haven’t opened it in a while!
Re fading: back in the early 1980s I was using a Canon inkjet printer and found that the magenta ink faded within a few hours if exposed directly to sunlight. Under glass it faded over a longer period; however if the print was in contact with the glass it lasted, I’ve got prints on my walls that haven’t faded (but they’ve only been exposed to room illumination). I had the suspicion at the time that oxidation activated by UV caused the fading- it appeared to require sunlight and air.
As for oil paintings at the moment I can pick these up for between 2 GBP and 10 GBP at local thrifts and consign them to auction in Nottingham where they fetch 20 to 40 GBP. So there’s a small profit. Except where they don’t sell- I had to walk three miles yesterday carrying an oil of a river scene from the auction house to the nearest thrift shop. Over the bridge that’s in the final scene of the original version of “Smiley’s People”- I did think of throwing the damn thing into the river!
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@hausfrau
I never heard back from anyone at the big auction houses, so I’m trying to research it myself before reaching out to a broker. If I could find Marsh’s name on a list of entries in the La Tausca art competition in 1947 or 1948 it would help with authentication… I did find out it was a travelling exposition that made it from NY to the west coast so thats a good lead.I did find an image on https://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=96305 (still not sure what this website is actually)
of a painting very similar in size and subject of Marshs work, so that is promising….
And Mike never revealed his opinion as to authenticity, so it might be a big fat fake. Don’t fall over yet. If it turns out to be authentic you’ll be the first to know 😉 and I will be the first to fall over…
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Hey, Big Sally — you’re going to want to sit down!
Check out this blog post. The author found a brochure from the 1948 show and lists a few of the artists and the titles of their entered works. I think you’ll be very pleased.
http://inbetweennoise.blogspot.com/2010/11/when-albers-or-shahn-could-be-had-for.html
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Hausfrau! How did you find that in a day? I’ve been looking forever! You are amazing thank you! Thank you. The link did not have pictures. were there any? OMG, wow. ok. Oh boy. Time to start figuring out a plan. head spinning…Suggestions please! feel like I’m on antiques roadshow …
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Sally, I’m so excited for you!
So, the photos aren’t showing up for me, either. I think the person’s gallery is down. You could try contacting the blogger to see if s/he still has a copy of the exhibition catalog, or…. (drum roll please…) — you could contact one of these archives, all of which have a copy of the exhibition catalog in their records. Personally, I’ve had good luck with the Frick Collection — they look things up, copy them, and mail them to you.
Note on page 2, if you’re in Seattle — there’s a copy in the Seattle Art Museum Libraries.
This is honestly so thrilling. I’m absolutely geeking out over here!
Once you have a copy of the exhibition catalog, I think it’s worth approaching some of the auction companies again. Which ones did you try contacting? I’d certainly talk to Sotheby’s and Christies.
Keep in mind, I’m just an amateur without experience or training, just a brain that’s wired to find research immensely enjoyable. 😉
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Give me the TL;DR version.How much do you think she can sell this for? It’s just a print, right? Or is this an original?
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So, here’s the tl/dr as I understand it:
1. Big Sally picked up a painting, which was reportedly deaccessioned (or never even fully accessioned) by the Seattle Public Library, at an auction.
The painting is signed “Reginald Marsh” and has various stickers and labels indicating that it was shown at the La Tausca Art Competition in 1948. I tracked down a blog where someone posted some content from an exhibition catalog for the show, and a painting by the same name, by Reginald Marsh, is listed as one of the entries.
As far as I can tell from here (across the country, through a blog, with my terrible eyes), this is an original painting — tempera, I think, on Masonite or other board.
Reginald Marsh is a relatively well-known American artist. His work is shown all over the country and is in the permanent collections of, among other places, MOMA and The Met.
As for the value of this particular piece — I really don’t know. So much of his work has sold that it would almost take a spreadsheet where you categorize and cross-reference by medium, size, subject, age, etc. in order to really arrive at a range. Doing a quick “Findartinfo” search, the highest price I find a tempera painting selling for is over $200k. The lowest is about $6,000. But there are sales not recorded on that site, and without looking at each piece and without knowing what subjects are most desirable, it’s impossible to say. I mean, I feel confident that it’s at minimum worth over $1,000 — and that’s pretty exciting all on its own!
Sorry, this has probably gone on too “L” for it to be a true “TL/DR” version. 🙂
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This is exciting. I’ve been waiting for the first Scavenger here to really hit it big.
This place seems to collect his work and might be worth contacting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Benton_Museum_of_Art0
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Blogger’s Steve Roden. Reason why all the artists’ names are in lower case is because he’s a composer of lowercase music 🙂
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Hey there-
The painting is now in a climate controlled 5×5 locker in a bike box. Road Trip to Seattle next week to check out the catalogue, weather permitting.
Hausfrau you are amazing , thank you so much. Yes you are spot on in your report. You cracked the case wide open.
In the meantime big weather event coming to the PNW , You salty snow dogs would laugh at everyone here losing their minds with 6 inches of snow. gas fireplace, honda generator, 2 day shipping, we be ok.
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Sally, if weather doesn’t permit a Seattle road trip, or if you have a spare moment over the weekend, you can put in an email request to the Frick Collection and they’ll mail (or scan and email) you a copy. The relevant information about how to do it is here:
https://www.frick.org/research/library/copies
Also, I’d definitely call the library in Seattle to make sure they’re open and still have the document you’re looking for.
Did I mention that I”m totally excited for you!?!?!?!?!
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Hausfrau,
I am waiting to hear back from Frick I’m not sure I requested it correctly. But I’m going to follow up this week. Also going to call the Seattle Art Museum about their copy. I’m glad you’re excited, me too!0 -
Hello Everybody-
Frick Library reference desk in NYC answered the phone on the first ring and the very nice lady knew exactly what I was talking about regarding my request last week; And then she told me they would be sending the scans of the brochure at the end of this week. And then we talked about how NY and PNW have switched weather this winter…Very nice Lady. I have never made a request like this and it was very easy.
cheers
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Got the Brochure from Frick, the work is listed, no picture. There may be some records at the Smithsonian within Marshes personal diaries or book keeping. I had looked before, but maybe not the correct year.
I sent off an inquiry to Christies today.1+ -
Big Sally! This is great news. I doubt you’ll need a photo when you have the card on the back of the painting and then the title listed in the brochure. The connection seems clear. My fingers and toes are crossed that Christies comes back with good news for you!
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