The Online Photographer

I think that although not in the spirit of the idea of a limited edition. One could argue that these are not the same. Since the previous edition were dye transfer and these are pigment inkjet prints.
Something collectors aren't supposed to like anyway.

This will be interesting to watch.

Doc

Watch. The argument in defense will be that the limited editions are dye transfer, and the recent editions are pigment, so they are different. Hair splitting.

Ive been told more than once that if I don't create ltd. editions of some of my better images, they won't sell for "Big Money" If all I cared about was money, the last thing I ever would have become is a photographer! I'd be pushing stocks like countless people and talking about my portfolio's "upside" rather than what I hope is its artistic significance...

I'm with Eggleston on this one, though I agree that the whole concept of a limited edition photograph is artificial. I think that if they are in different media, then they are different prints. It's also not unusual for a limited edition to include so many of one size and fewer of a larger size.

As a general approach, I think it would be a better reflection of the photographic process for photographers to print a "series" of more or less identical prints made at once at a particular time, allowing the possibility of a new interpretation of the image at a later date, rather than an "edition" that in most cases isn't printed to completion anyway unless it sells. If the entire edition isn't printed at once, you can't even count on the materials being available to make an identical print, say, ten years later.

" .. a lot of people are pissed..." that caught my eye. In the UK this means " .. a lot of people are totally inebriated.."

The UK equivalent would be ".. a lot of people are pissed off..."

My colleagues on the continent have picked up the US version. They are constantly telling me "I was really pissed in that meeting with the boss today" - much to my amusement.

Editioning by size is as old as the hills in "art" photography and photographic collecting. Virtually all photographers I knew working and selling their prints in the gallery venue made their "limited editions" with the specific plan that if down the road, they struck it famous, they could "new edition" a set in a different size to get the big payday. Might have even pre-planned the second edition size and materials ahead of time to delineate it from the first.

This happens mostly because when these types of photographers are getting established, they're virtually giving their work away, especially after the gallery cut. Once you make it big, then someone who got a print of yours for a hundred bucks can cash in for thousands and you don't get any of it, and when you first made the print and sold it, you were probably paying people 25 bucks out of your pocket to take it.

Better be happy with the value of what you get for what you pay, like your house, there's no guarentee you'll get a payback even when you sell.

This illustrates the whole problem with Limited Editions: there is no consistent definition about what is allowed or not. Therefore, the term has no value beyond the adding an inflated auction-house vibe to art sales. No thanks.

Full marks for a post on this topic that doesn't once use "edition" as a verb.

John,
Photography collectors aren't ultra-rich. For years, photography collecting was known as a refuge for collectors who couldn't afford to collect paintings. Today, you can get really good photographs for under $10k and there are relatively few sales above $1 million. Meaning you can be garden-variety rich and participate enthusiastically.

Mike

Daniel S.,
Actually, it DOES have value--literal, monetary value--and that's part and parcel of the problem.

Mike

Excuse me for once again dissenting from the general view here, but I actually think that limited editions have value for both photographers and galleries (which photographers need.) But if Sobel sues and Eggleston wins, I think that would effectively end the concept of photographic limited editions, short of some really unpleasant legal arrangement in which lawyers would have to be paid (I'm thinking of a specific contract signed by the photographer and the buyer, setting out the terms of the limited edition.)

I always thought that photographic 'limited editions' meant that limited numbers of the *image* could be printed, and I think most collectors assumed that. With photographs, it's the only thing that makes sense. This is important because it allows photographers and galleries to somewhat crank up the price of the photographs. A collector may buy a photograph for love, but the possibility of a little financial reward is nice, too -- especially if you buy a few each year, and 99% of those photographers will disappear into obscurity, with your money.

So what's going to happen with difficult, obscure photographers like Eggleston was in his early years? Who is going to pay $5,000 for a photograph of a tricycle (and that's about what $1500 was worth in 1980), when, if it turns out to be valuable, the photographer will flood the market with *even better prints* of the image?'

Frankly, as a small time collector, I might look at a piece of what I think of as "difficult" work, I might like it, but $5,000 for what amounts to an open edition, from a young obscure photographer that nobody's ever heard of? That's a lot of money. Most people don't get their money by picking it off trees.

Sobel supposedly has 192 limited edition Eggleston prints, which he values between $3 and $5 million. If they are worth $5 million, the average print would be worth $26,000. We ain't talking Impressionist paintings, here. Nor are we talking "ultra-rich." We're also talking about a carefully assembled collection that may now be worthless -- Eggleston is selling these new prints for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I think they will now dominate the market.

If you don't like limited editions because you just don't like them, that's fine. Don't buy them, and don't create them. But it's nice to have both routes. I think Eggleston may be in the process of destroying the route that kept him alive as a young photographer.

New York state and California gave pretty detailed law on this, and there is absolutly no way that Eggelston did anything against the applicable laws.

I don't know how this suit would fare better in federal court but a in a NY court I don't think it would last long enough for the chairs to get warm.

Dear Mike,

I don't hold with limited editions myself, either, but that's just me and has no bearing on this.

I'd say that Sobel is very unlikely to win this case (assuming both sides have competent lawyers and witnesses), UNLESS he can come up with an explicit statement that no prints would ever be made again, period. That is not implicit in the meaning of limited edition in the art world. Prints of substantially different size and medium are considered to fall into entirely different editions. Prints of substantially the same size and medium are part of a single edition regardless of when they are printed (dictionary hair-splitting is irrelevant).

I can't define the line; as in almost all art matters it is fuzzy. But dye transfers vs inkjets and and 16x20 vs 40x60 doesn't come within a light year of it. I have done exactly this kind of work for clients and it didn't raise a hint of an ethical whisper.

Sobel may very well be looking for an out of court settlement, but there's no way he'll get a ruling in his favor unless the other side blows the case.

pax / Ctein

I agree with others that the new edition is significantly different from the previous one and thus should be considered separate. The whole technique (print type and analog vs. digital) and size has changed. Thus it's hard to see why the original edition would be devalued; collecting is not about comparable items, it's about originals.

This does beg the more general question of what if the photographer wants to make a new edition that has different post-processing? In analog, there are print types which might be hard to perfectly replicate. In digital, there's an increasing tendency to use the raw file as a starting point, with a significant part of the image done in post-processing. Say that the photographer decides later in life that re-processing the photo would be desirable and a new edition is done. Is this now a new edition or new work?

I think that digital is going to bring up the topic of limited editions more, since making a hard copy is more mechanical than ever, the act of printing having essentially become the act of post-processing.

@Ken Tanaka:

I agree that Sobel's claim is weak (although, as somebody noted above, that would depend to some extent on the exact terms under which the gallery and Eggleston sold the original prints.)

I would also like to know the exact terms under which Eggleston sold the current edition -- given the amounts he got for them, I bet it's not "open," and I'll bet the guarantees that go with it are pretty clear.

But it's a shame that the best price guarantee you can apparently get is that the photographer is dead. That could put a real crimp in the life-style of young photographers.

Perhaps the answer will be for a bunch of galleries to get together and hire a law firm and come up with some kind iron-clad contract under federal law that could be endlessly duplicated, and that the photographers would sign, guaranteeing only x number of images will be sold.

Understand here, that I'm not either attacking or defending collectors, but I'm actually more worried about photographers. Without editioning, I bet most young photographers, no matter how talented, couldn't sell their prints for the cost of properly printing them. I really don't think art should necessarily involve a lot of charity on the part of the artist. They're workmen as well as artists, and they ought to get paid.

Dear John Camp,

From a business point of view I think you're entirely correct that limited editions enhance a photographer's salability. For all the obvious reasons that rarity sells.

That said, it creates an artistic conflict, in that most photographers become better printers (or acquire better printers by which I mean human beings) over time. My earliest prints are distinctly inferior to my current ones, both for reasons of medium and because I've become vastly more skilled over the years.

So there becomes a problem. I can either enhance my market value by restricting how many prints I will make do it, and then be done. Or I can try to produce the best art I possibly can by continuing to make prints in the future. It is not an enviable choice, but it is also not one that has a simple and clean answer. At least, not unless one is simply in it for the money.

On your other point, which is that Eggleston's actions are contrary to expectations, this is not true in the art world. It is a well understood and accepted practice, in fact a near universal one, that editions of substantial difference in size or medium are not the same. in my years of experience, this is the very first time I've heard an experienced collector assert anything other than that. Sobel's position is remarkable that way.

It may be that there is some peculiarity in New York limited edition law that does exclude the practice of making different editions of substantially different form, but unless that exists, this collector has no grounds to stand upon. To an unknowledgeable layperson, his interview in Photo District News might seem persuasive. It does in no way, though, correspond to widely accepted practice and understanding and the analogies he draws vary between inappropriate, misleading, and misdirection. they will definitely not get him anywhere in a court of law.

Rather than an Eggleston win totally upsetting the apple cart of artist in buyer, it would merely reaffrm existing practice. To the contrary a win by Sobel would represent a radical change. Perhaps not one for the worse, but definitely not business as usual as it is been practiced to date.

(Please excuse any word salad etc.)

pax / Ctein

"On your other point, which is that Eggleston's actions are contrary to expectations, this is not true in the art world. It is a well understood and accepted practice, in fact a near universal one, that editions of substantial difference in size or medium are not the same."

It's funny, and I don't know which of us is right, but my impression has always been the opposite--that "real" limited editions are strictly limited, and that the people who "cheat" by citing different photographic processes or different sizes are being low-rent and vaguely dishonorable and that it's something no top-rank photographer or gallery would do.

I suppose each of us could find ample precedents--practices on anything usually cover a broad range--but it's interesting that our respective impressions of this could be so much at odds.

Mike

I think Sobel's lawsuit will fail simply because he is seeking to restrain the trade of someone else. Unless he has a clear contract obligating Eggleston to limit his prints and sales on this, the only way Sobel can win is to restrain open trade by Eggleston. Our law in the US does not favor restraints of trade.