One more day of CMJ Music Marathon in New York. We have seen a lot of great bands — and a lot of great fashion. Style might play second fiddle to music in this case, but we couldn’t help but be inspired by the musicians who rocked their own personal flare — and had the chops to back it up.

Click on the slideshow to see 10 bands we wouldn’t mind taking style advice from. 

NEW YORK — Friday’s rainy gray skies added to the old-world mood at the International Fine Art & Antiques Dealers fair, October 19-25. It’s always had a heavy British feel — silver tea caddies, equestrian paintings, big mahogany desks, Thomas Chippendale furniture — but dealers sprinkled a crop of eclectic curiosities throughout the 65 booths this year, broadening the appeal beyond the usual connoisseurs.

To be sure, it’s still easy enough to stumble over the gilded foot of a Louis XIV chair or George II settee. But there’s no shortage of unique finds, like an 18th-century Russian rifle sized for a young boy at Peter Finer, a brass telescope built for J.P. Morgan’s yacht at Hyland Granby Antiques, and cravat pins shaped like cigar-smoking pirate skulls at A La Vieille Russie.

And the fair appears to be gaining traction with buyers outside its typical market. Several traditional antique and artifact dealers noticed an increase in attendance among contemporary art collectors. Take Chicago’s Douglas Dawson, a gallery that deals ethnographic arts, especially African ceramics. “Most of our collectors are contemporary art collectors,” says co-director Wally Bowling. “Everyone’s seen Picasso’s or Matisse’s studio with African arts in it. It’s quite common today to see someone have a great modern painting, fabulous deco furniture, and a great artifact.”

Dawson gallery, which also exhibits at fairs like Art Miami and Expo Chicago, had a pre-Columbian checkered textile from Peru — “a bit like Sean Scully,” Bowling noted — and a number of earthen figures and ceramics on view.

The sentiment was similar at Daniel Crouch Rare Books, which specializes in 15th- to 19th-century maps and atlases. “The market for decorative prints is disastrous right now because people’s homes are more minimalist,” said owner Daniel Crouch. “But cartography seems to be doing okay.”

He pointed to a map of the western hemisphere by missionary to China Ferdinand Verbiest. Crouch had the ornate Eastern print, originally done in 1674, framed in sleek, modern etched metal.

But not everyone is changing with the tide. England’s Thomas Coulborn & Sons, which had a dozen Chippendale chairs and two Regency-era urns among its offerings, is participating in IFAAD for only its second year. When asked if he felt like he was responding to developments in the market, director Jonathan Coulborn said, “We mostly work with existing clients — we sell antiques.”

PARIS — FIAC is well under way in the City of Lights, and continues through Sunday. In the opening hours of the fair, ARTINFO France editor Nicolai Hartvig took a walk through the big fair, getting a glimpse of some of this year's highlights and speaking with key dealers about business and the French art scene (for his official dispatch on the first day of business, click here). 

To take a tour of FIAC 2012, click on the video below:

Our most-talked-about stories in Visual Art, Design & Architecture, Fashion & Style, and Performing Arts, October 15 - 19, 2012:

ART

— Two stories took a look at the economics of art, with Rachel Corbett examining the potential impact of a law going into effect on November 6 in New York designed to protect artists from unscrupilous dealers, and Sara Roffino exploring three different models for supporting an arts organization in an age of declining government funding.

— The annual FIAC art fair opened in Paris with two new outdoor areas for installations, and the ARTINFO France writers were there. Nicolai Hartvig spoke with participating gallery reps and dealers who reported that sales were busy from the start, while Céline Piettre and Juliette Soulez offered the hits and misses of some satellite fair options.

— Jeff Koons explained the sometimes erotic, often art historical, subtexts and references of his balloon sculptures and paintings in his solo exhibition at Galerie Almine Rech in Brussels.

— If an artist sells their work as a triptych, should it stay that way? Judd Tully looked at the case of the Gerhard Richter triptych owned by rock star Eric Clapton that was divided for a sale at Sotheby’s London last week.  

— Alanna Martinez and Micah Schmidt immersed themselves in the 2012 New York Comic Con and found a wealth of collectible designer toys, 20 of which were especially awesome, including works by Ron English, Ashley Wood, and Parsons New School of Design students.

DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE

— Almost four decades after it was initially planned to memorialize Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island is finally opening to the public this month. Kelly Chan got a preview of the Louis Kahn-designed memorial park.

— At this week’s Municipal Arts Society Summit, three architecture firms, WXY Architecture + Urban Design, Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), and Foster + Partners, offered views of the future at Grand Central Terminal, with SOM’s proposal featuring a UFO-like structure hovering above the station.

— Sales records were broken for designers Maarten Baas, Studio Job, Hella Jongerius, Robert Wilson, and Patricia Urquiolain at Murray Moss’s experimental Phillips de Pury sale.

— Janelle Zara interviewed Michael Darling, curator of the design exhibition “Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec: Bivouac” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

— Could Rem Koolhaas’s design for the Kunsthal museum be to blame for the recent thefts? Janelle Zara speculates. 

FASHION & STYLE

— Lee Carter discussed the career of illustrator Antonio Lopez with Mauricio and Roger Padilha, who collaborated on a monograph chronicling his singularly glamorous life and work.

— Ann Binlot investigated the exhibition of the bold fashion of artist Frida Kahlo that opens at the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City next month.

— British artists Mariana Fantich and Dominic Young have created some curious fashion pieces, such as shoes lined with fake teeth and a suit made from glass eyes, teeth, and human hair.

— Caitlin Petreycik reached out to Thomas Bosket, a professor at Parsons The New School for Design, to analyze the political significance behind Barack Obama and Mitt Romney’s respective tie color choices for this week’s debate.

— Coinciding with that sartorial moment was the two candidates’ wives wearing bright pink dresses, which led to the inevitable “who wore it better” vote off. 

PERFORMING ARTS

— J. Hoberman reviewed Leos Carax’s long-awaited new film “Holy Motors,” which he stated “harks back in mood to the French avant-garde of a hundred plus years ago” and is “a blatant crowd-confounder.”

— The nominees for the Gotham Independent Film Awards were announced this week, with the celebrated indie flick “Beasts of the Southern Wild” inexplicably omitted from the Best Feature category.

— Despite ending its five seasons two years ago, “Friday Night Lights” is staying relevant, at least in terms of rallying references, as the presidential race shows.

— In the wake of the announcement that “Skins” would be canceled, details were revealed on what to expect from the final season.

— Craig Hubert brought us the latest in Janis Joplin biopic news, with Lee Daniels now in talks to direct a feature with Amy Adams. 

VIDEO

— Tom Chen and Alanna Martinez visited Royal Watercolorist Alexander Creswell, who exhibited recently at Hirschl & Adler in New York. He told them what it was like to document the Royal Wedding and other regal affairs through his art. 

— Can't make it to Paris? Nicolai Hartvig of ARTINFO France toured the FIAC art fair to showcase some of its highlights and talked with participants.

PARIS — While there are some galleries here with several FIACs under their belt, many of them are setting foot in the historic Grand Palais for the first time, as newcomers to the French art market. ARTINFO France spotted many with only one to five years of experience — though some have much more. With emerging artists, creative presentation, and interesting collaborations, these newcomers have injected new life into the fair.

Among the galleries that are brand new to FIAC, Dubai’s The Third Line is a favorite. It has been in existence for seven years and has already participated in Frieze four times. The gallery’s first visit to FIAC has brought new challenges and brisk sales. What’s the secret to The Third Line’s success? It’s very simple: very good and very young artists. ARTINFO France especially likes Bangladeshi artist Rana Begum’s conceptual work, between minimalism and modernism: geometrical and colorful pieces using different scales of folding, sometimes on paper, sometimes on metal. And we love Hayv Kahraman, an extraordinary Iraqi painter who is inspired by Arab illuminated manuscripts and who paints scenes of men and women on wood with incredible grace. Another terrific discovery is the work of Iranian-born, New York-based artist Pouran Jinchi. Originally a calligrapher, she has sculpted in coded Persian lettering and in three dimensions a phrase from Sadegh Hedayat’s novel “The Blind Owl” (which was considered a classic of Surrealism by André Breton and was made into a film by Raoul Ruiz in the late '80s). Finally, the adjustable sculpture by Monir Shahrouly bursts with a thousand lights, like a true Berber jewel.

It’s also the German gallery Kamm’s first time at FIAC. Usually relying on a circle of loyal German collectors, the gallery decided to embark on a French adventure, and brought work by painter Christoph Meier, conceptual artist Bernd Ribbeck, and photographer Kathrin Sonntag. ARTINFO France especially liked Meier’s installation “Untitled (Discotheque),” which consists of long bars with neon lights at the ends (they are made from hospital transfusion trolleys). Ribbeck’s magnificent paintings, between geometrical abstraction and extraordinary color experiments, are also very winning.

Another winner is at the Glasglow gallery Mary Mary, with its wonderful director Hannah Robinson. For her first visit to FIAC, she has brought two artists: French artist Lili Raynaud Dewar and the very gifted Californian Alexis Marguerite Teplin. The gallery, which has been in business for over six years, has not sold a lot at the fair, but still considers it a successful undertaking. Teplin is a great painter from all angles, whether it’s small formats or canvases hung and cut up on the wall. A master of color, his paintings are not only beautiful but also convey mystery — especially the cut-up canvases, which fall somewhere between reclaimed objects and masterful abstractions.

Meyer Riegger, a gallery that needs no introduction, is also at FIAC for the first time. “We like French food,” director Thomas Riegger joked, before adding, “It’s Europe’s rising fair.” A terrific painting by Franz Ackerman, works by Helen Mivre and David Thorpe, and a piece by Jonathan Monk make this a really excellent booth, and we didn’t see anything we would change.

And we couldn’t leave out Balice Hertling’s first appearance at FIAC. Working closely with the Milanese design gallery Nilufar, this booth has enough space to show both furniture and art, as if in a real — and luxurious — salon. The gallery is showing work by young French artist Isabelle Cornaro, who no longer needs any introduction, and New York-based artist Kerstin Bratsch. But it’s Oscar Tuazon who surprised us the most with his double doors: one opens onto his Paris gallery’s booth, and the other onto his New York gallery’s booth, Maccarone.

São Paulo’s Luciana Brito also stands out, and has brought work by international artists such as Alex Katz and Anthony McColl along with Brazilian artists. A large fresco by Regina Silveira is striking because of its political content: huge scissors, a Kalashnikov rifle, and a corkscrew burst forth from images of political personalities including Margaret Thatcher. Like a mural of over-sized shadows, the piece has a certain dramatic flair while still remaining in the realm of the absurd.

For the second year, Antwerp’s Baroque Gallery is at FIAC, with works by two artists, Leigh Ledare and Aaron Bobrow. Ledare’s diptych is captivating: on newspaper pages enlarged to human size, the artist has photographed a naked woman with her legs spread, in a play on the contrast between text and image, as if this woman’s most personal life was dissolved into current events. Is it a reflection on the hybrid nature of the contemporary world or an examination of the obscenity of current events? It’s up to the viewer to decide. Bobrow’s abstract paintings make less of an impression; it’s hard to tell if they have been made to establish a connection with the senses or as artistic marketing.

Every year, FIAC snares young galleries in its web, and they are thrilled to be caught. As in previous editions, the second floor of the Grand Palais (except for the Salon d’Honneur) is reserved for them — especially the Lafayette section, where ten participants have been selected to receive financial support by a jury that includes Palais de Tokyo director Jean de Loisy and Sandra Terdjman of the Kadist Art Foundation.

Many of the young galleries have chosen solo shows in order to focus collectors’ attention on a single artist. This has created many great booths, coherent mini-exhibitions that can be taken in with a single glance (also, the space is more limited than on the ground floor due to financial imperatives).

At the head of the list, the black-and-white booth of Schleicher + Lange, which opened its doors in 2004, is entirely devoted to the Iranian-German artist Timo Nasseri. The booth brings together ink and pencil drawings (one, “I Saw a Broken Labyrinth,” was inspired by Borges), kaleidoscope-sculptures inspired by Persian or Islamic ornamentation (“Parsec 2 and 11”), and a wall drawing (“Horizon Oblique”), which is made of circles and arcs traced with a compass like geometrical gears. Nasseri’s work invents its own language — mathematical, formal, and indecipherable. The white (positive) shapes and the black (negative) shapes cancel each other out when placed side by side.

Crèvecoeur is another young gallery that has adopted the strategy of showing a single artist (an especially good strategy in a limited space). For its first time at FIAC, the gallery has set up a booth with exacting precision showing the work of Jorge Pedro Nuñez. A labyrinth of books, a metal plate pierced with geometrical shapes, a sculpture of concrete and wood: Everything has been skillfully calculated to provide the best presentation of the Venezuelan artist’s work, which borrows from geometrical abstraction and daily life.

The same holds true at Gaudel de Stampa, where we discovered the emerging artist Lina Viste Gronli through her elementary works, reduced sometimes to a simple nail splashed with colored pigment. And in a similar spirit, the young Paris gallery Marcelle Alix has designed a booth that is stripped-down but sensual, in various shades of gray and pink that play on the contrast of textures in the work of Varda Caivano and Ian Kiaer — two demanding displays that get extra points for risk-taking.

A more hard-hitting approach has been taken by Sémiose, which is showing only three works that speak to each other perfectly: art collective Présence Panchounette’s police officer (“Traffic,” 1985), Piero Gilardi’s landscape (“Bosca de Casterino,” 2011), and Laurent le Deunff’s trophy (“Noeud de Trompe V,” 2012). Considering the number of visitors squeezing their way into the small booth (one of the narrowest at the fair), the tactic seems to be paying off.

The slightly better-known gallery Polaris is showing the nomadic constellations of Bouchra Khalili and the sculpture “Concrete Palestine” by Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar.

As far as sales go, New York gallery Eleven Rivington is doing pretty well. According to the gallery’s Augusto Arbizo, sales started very early, on the Wednesday morning reserved for VIPs. The gallery sold a wood and enamel piece by Michael De Lucia to a French collector for $28,000. The next day, a collage by Valeska Soares was picked up by an American collector for $50,000. ARTINFO France had spotted the work earlier, a kind of hopscotch wall installation made of book covers. These two emerging artists are beginning to be better known in France.

The Brooklyn gallery Clearing, which opened just two years ago, has also gotten noticed at FIAC. Director Olivier Babin brought works by two New York artists to the fair: Ryan Foerster and Harold Ancart, whose in situ painting of a spurt of black pigment is unique. With furnishings by Konrad Dedobbeleer, the gallery has a hand in design as well as contemporary art.

And, finally, we’d hate to forget Samy Abraham, with a selection of remarkable artists: Emilie Ding and the duo Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle. Samy Abraham made an interesting choice of presentation: for the first two days of the fair, Ding’s work was positioned up high and Martin & Youle’s work was on the floor, and then the arrangement was reversed.

To see the works mentioned in this fair report, click on the slideshow.

To see all of ARTINFO's FIAC coverage, click here.

PARIS — Coming hot on the heels of Frieze, Paris's FIAC gives it a run for its money, drawing A-list dealers and sharp-eyed collectors alike. This year, ARTINFO France has offered reports on sales from the main fair (here and here), an asssesment of its many satellite fairs (here), a peek at the pop-up outdoor sculpture garden the fair has brough to the city (here), and even a video walk-through (here). But for those who just want to get a taste of all the great art at FIAC in one place, we've also put together this photo gallery. Enjoy!

To see pictures of the great art at FIAC 2012, click on the slideshow.

To see all of ARTINFO's FIAC coverage, click here.

Name: Peter Coffin


Age: “Around 77
”

Occupation: Artist


City/Neighborhood: New York City

Current Exhibition: “A, E, I, O, U” at Venus Over Manhattan, 980 Madison Avenue, New York, through November 2, 2012. 

“A, E, I, O, U” at Venus Over Manhattan is your first solo gallery exhibition in New York since “You Are Me” at Andrew Kreps Gallery in 2008, and features a monumental sculpture of a Great Dane. What can you tell us about the art you are showing?

Most of the works are sculpture or sculptural installation works, some even involve sound, moving image, and smell. Some of the works are hardly noticeable.

A wide range of ideas rooted in art history, science, New Age philosophy, and culture have made their way into your work. Did any new discoveries inspire this exhibition?

Yes. I’m certain they did. Some new perspectives I think.

At Storm King in Mountainville, New York, you are exhibiting a couple of pieces that respond to seemingly unanswerable questions, like “what does sunshine sound and taste like?” — which you answer through a musical interpretation of sunlight with musician Bob James — and an apiary where visitors can taste honey and witness bees making honey. What draws you to make work that seems impossible?

Impossibility is interesting, but not the draw. I’m interested in experiences that give new perspective or catalyze some broader understanding.

You’re an expert at challenging your viewers’ preconceptions about art, such as with your 2009 installation of 13 sculptures in New York’s City Hall Park, which were all silhouettes in black aluminum of works traced from art history books, and also viewers’ ideas of the logic of nature, like your 2007 “Tree Pants” exhibition Horticultural Society of New York. What art has done the same for you?

Stephen Kaltenbach’s "Influence Piece," some of Andreas Slominki’s work, Adrian Piper’s writing, a piece that Rodney Graham and Bruce Nauman did together, Ken Nordine’s "Colors," a painting by William Allen called the "Shadow Repair for the Western Man," circa 1970.

What project are you working on now?

I’ve been dying clouds various colors. 

What’s the last show that you saw?

Yesterday I saw Andra Ursuta’s show at Ramiken Crucible.


What’s the last show that surprised you? Why?

Andreas Slominski’s current show. Because his work is known for being clever and his exhibition is weird without being clever.

What’s your favorite place to see art?

Where I’d least expect it.

What’s the most indispensable item in your studio?

The fireman’s pole to my submarine helicopter with surround sound in the jacuzzinated cockpit.

Where are you finding ideas for your work these days?

Between the lines of stunning interview questions. Just kidding. I usually find them when I’m inspired and that usually happens when I experience or understand something in a new way.

What’s your art-world pet peeve?

The fact that we tend to identify it as one world surrounding the market of art. Its disconnect with the world. Pretention and style for style’s sake.

What’s your favorite post-gallery watering hole or restaurant?

I like bars called the “office” or the “library.” “Honey, I’m going to the Office.” “Mom I’m going to the Library.” I think every town has a bar like this.

Know any good jokes?

A rope walks into a bar and asks for a beer. “Are you that rope?” No, I’m a frayed knot 

What international art destination do you want to visit?

Naoshima, Inhotim, Gibbs Farm

Who’s your favorite living artist?

John Lennon

To see images of Peter Coffin's work, click on the slideshow.

WHAT: “Times Square Show Revisited”

WHEN: September 14 – December 8, Tuesday – Saturday 1:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.

WHERE: Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery at Hunter College/The Times Square Gallery, 695 Park Avenue, New York

WHY THIS SHOW MATTERS: In 1980 the artist group Collaborative Projects, Inc. staged an exhibition in four stories of a Times Square building on 7th Avenue, the basement of which was a former massage parlor. The location was perfect for the transformative performance, installation, video, painting, and otherwise uncategorized work that filled it in the month-long show, including pieces by a then-youthful crew of artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Jack Smith, Kiki Smith, and many others who have since been embraced by blue-chip galleries and are widely collected.

Hunter College Art Galleries takes a look at the influential event by rehanging work from nearly 40 of the original artists, along with photographs and ephemera from the music, fashion, and performance that, together, amount to a poignant tribute to the DIY spirit of the seminal show.

The exhibition's curator, Shawna Cooper, describes the art scene at the time as a divided landscape between exclusive commercial spaces and younger artists whose presence was widespread but underrepresented in the gallery scene, in an essay for the show's website. Their work was generally more lowbrow, and directly addressed social and economic issues at the forefront of their own living experiences in repurposed industrial lofts and studios on the cusp of broken New York neighborhoods. The grit of the seedy businesses that made up Times Square at the time were reflective were of, making it an ideal location for the show, along with the raw space available in the area.

The collective nature of the group show, which brought together graffiti artists like Fab 5 Freddy with other burgeoning art scenesters like Alan Moore of ABC No Rio, merged disparate styles influenced by a rejection of commercial art endeavors and a desire to put artists in charge of their projects. Tom Otterness, one of the original participating artists, says in his first hand account on the Times Square Revisited show website, “I think within the art world context the TSS [Times Square Show] was against art about art.” He added the motive for the show was “definitely that drive to get out of the art world . . . to bring content back in and to bring in a kind of visual language that the average person could understand, read, and speak.”

There was no shortage of color on the spring 2013 runways, but when we asked Thomas Bosket, a professor at Parsons The New School for Design and an expert in color theory, to analyze the designers’ choices of hues, he was more interested in the ways they used a lack of color. “Black is a looming presence,” he told ARTINFO after parsing recent fashion month photos. “It’s not neutral. Usually black is used more like a background or a backdrop. Here it’s being used to speak, here it’s an interloper. It’s interrupting the conversation.” 

So why is black so pushy this season? Bosket theorizes that, like the rest of us, it just has to work a little harder in the current economy. “Matisse used black as a color, he didn’t use it as nothingness. You don’t fall through the canvas, it rises through the surface. It’s meant to give people a sense of security,” he said. “I just feel like things are tough, and if you see that lack in your daily experience, if black is used as it’s traditionally been used, as a nothingness, that’s scary. It’s a reminder of that lack.”

Bosket said to think of the new, friendlier black like the lines in a Mondrian painting, which stand out just as much as the bold shapes they’re supporting. Mary Katrantzou used blocks of darkness to structure her spring 2013 patterns, much like Proenza Schouler, whose network of inky lines Bosket compared to armor. And, like armor, black that’s used in a weak economy is meant to protect. “It feels solid,” Bosket said. “It feels like it’s rallying its forces. It’s pulling things together and hanging the rest of the colors off of this black hub, rather than a black hole where the color kind of shines out of it.”

Balenciaga used the non-hue to highlight form and structure, while Prada’s simple color palette offset the Japanese draping and asymmetry of the label’s spring 2013 collection. “They must have received the memo on the bold use of value, but as is expected, their great imbalanced sense of balance comes in handy here to create a totemic quirk,” Bosket said of Prada’s offerings. 

Amidst all of this “black is the new black” talk, Bosket did point out that there was one designer who used the achromatic color in its more traditional role — Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen. “It’s used as nothingness. It definitely fell into the background,” he said. “The gold was like lace that you could see the body through.” It makes sense that the goth-glam label wouldn’t be afraid of sending its fans into the abyss, but, as Bosket said of black, “It’s better to feel buoyed by it, to feel like it’s pulling everything up.” 

Click on the slideshow for more of Thomas Bosket’s take on spring 2013’s dark side. Plus, his thoughts on a few colorful looks. 

“The thing I love about dealing with prints at the top level is that you don’t have to make compromises—you can buy Art History 101,” says Armin Kunz, the New York director of the venerable C.G. Boerner Gallery, which deals in Old Master, 19th-century, and modern prints. “Few people can buy a Rembrandt or a Dürer. But if you buy Rembrandt’s Three Crosses,” a 1653 etching, “you are getting one of his most famous artworks.” One impression of the print, of which about 80 are known, sold privately a few years ago for a reported $1.5 million. Christie’s London sold one in December 2006 for £467,200, or just over $923,000.

The market for prints by well-known Old Masters has been small for some time, but not for lack of buyer interest. “It’s totally dependent on the scarcity of supply," Kunz says. “Whoever has the supply has the upper hand. The greatest thrill is not the sale; it’s getting the material on consignment for sale.”

Prints are the bonds, not the stocks, of the art market. Their prices generally rise over time but, with very few exceptions, don’t fluctuate wildly. Even in the current buoyant market, there are few signs of an emerging bubble in prints, experts say. “You can’t expect to sell a print at a profit 15 minutes after you buy one,” says Alexandra Schwartz, the director of Pace Master Prints in New York. “But if you buy the right print, you can sell it if you're patient enough.” While it’s hard to make generalizations—many variables affect prices over time—high-quality prints usually hold their value, according to Schwartz, and may do much better than that.

Traditionally, fine prints have appealed to new art buyers with limited resources as well as to committed collectors who are pursuing the gamut of works made by favored artists. But in recent years, with the very best paintings fetching record prices that place them beyond the reach of all but the top 0.1 percent of the market, prints have been getting a second look from a broader range of buyers. Collectors are learning that prints may be the best way to purchase distinctive images by well-known artists, and that many artists devote considerable effort to making important, highly desirable works in print media. Moreover, in the world of online art sales, prints have been a success story.

Prices in many print categories—particularly works made after World War II and iconic images from earlier eras—are showing strength at auction yet remain relatively affordable. Adam McCoy, the senior print specialist at Christie’s New York, characterizes the market as robust, adding, “Overall, the market for contemporary prints shows the most significant growth from season to season.” McCoy points out the historical strength of single-collection or single-artist sales, citing as an example last February’s auction of 38 etchings by Lucian Freud from the archive of his printer, Magar Balakjian. The prices realized by Freud’ sprints ranged from £10,000 to £145,250 ($15,700–228,000).

“Many collectors are looking to the print market for works that cost just a small fraction of what they’d have to pay for a painting,” says Mary Bartow, head of the prints department at Sotheby’s. On May 22, Sotheby’s London sold a complete set of Andy Warhol’s 10 color screen prints of Mao, 1972, for £1.6 million ($2.5 million), more than triple the high estimate of £500,000 ($791,000) and a world auction record for a print or set of prints by the artist. Two weeks earlier, Christie’s New York sold a large untitled monotype (image 30 3/8 by 90 1/8 inches; sheet 38 by 97 inches) 88 inches; sheet 38 by 97 inches) from 1983 by Jasper Johns at its postwar day sale for nearly $1.5 million against a $600,000-to-$800,000 estimate. A monotype is a unique work—essentially an edition of one. Yet the price was still far below what a painting of such size would fetch. Signed prints in large editions by masters like Johns and even Picasso can be found for prices in the low five figures.

Even an instantly recognizable work by a father of modern art can be had for that price. In her spare Manhattan office overlooking East 57th Street, Schwartz displays a small, colorful Cézanne of bathers, with the artist’s trademark fluid figures and characteristic tint of blue. This work, Les baigneurs (petite planche), which even up close has the freshness of a watercolor, is one of 100 impressions printed for the artist in 1896–97 by the master lithographer Auguste Clot, who in the late 19th century also worked with Bonnard, Degas, and Vuillard. The price? Just $35,000. Nearby hangs an aquatint by Picasso, a portrait of Françoise Gilot, dated 1947 and priced at$75,000. “It’s spontaneous, full of light,full of life,” says Schwartz.

Of course, not all works by the latter artist are so affordable. Consider the sale at Christie’s New York,in November 2011, of Picasso’s La femme quipleure I, a dry point with aquatint, etching, and scraper executed in 1937. “That had everything—the right artist, the right image, and scarcity," says Schwartz. "It's one of his greatest prints, and there are only 15 impressions. It's estimate of $1.5 million to $ 2 million. It was a world auction record for any single print.

Generally defined as images made on a surface that is inked for transfer to another surface, prints are made in editions, a set of identical images or “impressions.” The prints are numbered once an edition is completed. A limited-edition print indicates that the artist will issue no more impressions, a promise usually secured by striking an X through the plate to make further prints impossible. As with photographs, scarcity generally determines pricing: The smaller the edition, the greater the perceived value. The spectrum of processes includes woodcuts, engravings, wood engravings, etchings, aquatints, lithographs, silkscreens, linoleum cuts, archival inkjet prints, and more.

Print terminology can be daunting, even confusing, to newcomers, and it encompasses not only the process but also the type of paper, the printer, the image size, the printer’s stamp, and additional details. Glossaries and other basic information can be found on the Websites of the International Print Center and the International Fine Print Dealers Association, which will hold its annual fair November 1 to 4 at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. But collectors don’t really need to know the fine points of each process. It’s not as if all lithographs are better than all etchings, or vice versa. “There’s no hierarchy of medium,” Bartow says. Moreover, dealers sometimes use terms loosely. “We use ‘print’; some dealers use ‘lithograph’ and so on,” Schwartz notes.

During medieval times, prints, principally woodcuts, served such popular purposes as the production of playing cards and inexpensive religious images. The fine print arose during the Renaissance, with master engravings by Antonio del Pollaiuolo (only one survives) and Andrea Mantegna in Italy and Albrecht Dürer in Germany. Art historians credit Dürer’s 1513–14 trio of master engravings—Melencolia I; Knight, Death and the Devil; and St. Jerome in His Study—with establishing the print as an independent fine-art object. Prints by Rembrandt and Goya are among the most sought-after today.

As with any medium, historical periods come into and fall out of favor. Prints from the 17th and 18th centuries, for example, have been out for a while. This past spring, however, Boerner staged a widely admired exhibition of 17th- and 18th-century engravings by members of the French Academy at Pocket Utopia, the onetime space in Bushwick, Brooklyn, that reopened on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in collaboration with Boerner. Kunz says that some contemporary artists and dealers, including Richard Tuttle and Jack Tilton, took a fancy to the works. “Now I’ve become a great champion of what I call ‘French men in wigs,’” Kunz says. “These prints were in high demand at one time,” but the most expensive print in the show was priced at $2,500.

David Tunick, a veteran New York specialist in fine prints and drawings, drew enthusiastic audiences to an exhibition this past spring and summer of nearly 60 etchings by the 17th-century artist Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, supplemented with prints by the artist’s contemporaries and figures he later influenced, Claude, Piranesi, and Tiepolo among them. “Most people go for the recognizable, what I call the ‘wow factor,’” Tunick says, “and the 17th century doesn’t offer that beyond Rembrandt.” But there are “tremendous opportunities for collectors,” he adds, noting that the climate is changing as the auction houses become more inclined to include prints in their more “glamorous” evening sales and as more collectors come to understand that prints have been as important as painting to the practice of certain artists.

Prints from the 19th century are also market laggards at the moment. Prices soared along with Impressionist paintings during the height of Japanese buying in the 1980s and early 1990s, then dropped with the entire art market. They have not fully recovered. Some prints by Vuillard, Bonnard, and Toulouse-Lautrec today fetch just a few thousand dollars. In the early 20th century, many Austrian and German Expressionists—Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Käthe Kollwitz, Emil Nolde, and Egon Schiele—were master printmakers, and their works currently are in demand to the same high degree as Expressionist paintings.

Jane Kallir, a director of Galerie St. Etienne, the highly respected New York gallery that specializes in Expressionism, sees the market for Expressionist prints growing not with the discovery of neglected talents—the field is too thoroughly researched for that—but with the recognition of the broader output of established masters beyond their iconic works. For example, Galerie St. Etienne currently has one of Max Beckmann’s best-known prints, Self- Portrait in Bowler Hat, 1921, a drypoint that commands a price over $100,000. The gallery has another Beckmann drypoint from the same year, Merry-Go-Round,  priced at $12,000. It is, Kallir says, “just as satisfying and just as rare,” but the first Beckmann became “canonical” through frequent reproduction; hence its greater desirability. Kallir also points out a fresh, “fantastic,” and—yes—rare lithograph by Kirchner, Two Girls Bathing (Decorative Study), 1911, one of only two known impressions. It’s “counterintuitive,”Kallir says, yet possible for a print to be “too rare” and therefore difficult to sell.

Given their aesthetic of spontaneity, uniqueness, and monumental scale, the Abstract Expressionists mostly ignored printmaking. (Prints by Robert Motherwell, the great exception to the rule, were on view recently at Bernard Jacobson Gallery, in London.) The late 1950s and 1960s witnessed a turnaround with the emergence of Pop art and Minimalism. Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Hamilton, Johns, Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Sol LeWitt, Frank Stella, and others injected fresh energy into graphics. New master print studios emerged, notably Universal Limited Art Editions, in New York; Marlborough Graphics, in London; Crown Point Press, in San Francisco; and Gemini G.E.L., in Los Angeles. Fifty years on, these storied presses are working with the likes of Tomma Abts, John Baldessari, Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Serra, Amy Sillman, Kiki Smith, and Fred Wilson. In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the younger Durham Press has produced editions by Joe Amrhein, Polly Apfelbaum, Beatriz Milhazes, James Nares, and Mickalene Thomas. Milhazes has combined silkscreen and woodblock techniques, among other processes, in the course of several years of working with Durham Press. At New York’s James Cohan Gallery, Milhazes’s prints sell for $40,000 to $70,000—about double the price of 15 years ago—whereas her paintings go for about $1 million.

Cohan is a cofounder of the VIP Art Fair, which launched in 2011 and, last spring, debuted the print-heavy VIP Paper fair. VIP lives online, as do such selling sites as Artnet, Artspace, and Paddle8, which directs online shoppers to participating galleries. Chris Vroom, the cofounder and chairman of Artspace, describes prints, photographs, and other multiples as “a great on-ramp for emerging collectors” and notes that his own first acquisitions included Francis Bacon lithographs. Speaking of all media, he makes the case that the online site, which launched in March 2011 and is approaching one million visitors, “indisputably broadens” the market by providing education and information while offering collectors at all levels the option “to buy with just a few mouse clicks.”

Among the brick-and-mortar galleries that specialize in contemporary prints, perhaps none has made more vigorous use of the Web than the 29- year veteran Seattle dealer Greg Kucera. Citing the value of “visibility and transparency,” Kucera has a full-time employee devoted to overseeing the gallery’s own site—where all works are illustrated and priced publicly—and monitoring the presentation of gallery works on the Websites Artnet, Original Prints, and—in the near future—1stdibs. Kucera, who speaks with pride of sustained client relationships, reluctantly accepts the anonymity that accompanies online selling.

That anonymity, according to McCoy of Christie’s, can be a boon to buyers. “Many of our on line bidders are new clients,” he says. “Because they are able to participate from the comfort of their home or office, they bypass the intimidation of the auction process. Furthermore, they are savvy from the broad amount of information available.”

Print collectors have long been advised to develop “an eye,” to compare impressions, and to haunt exhibitions and auction rooms. Time will tell how online information stacks up against firsthand experience of a work. Either way, the future of prints looks bright. Many contemporary artists have embraced printmaking, drawn by the opportunity to experiment with techniques and to work across disciplines. Three-dimensional printing and other 21st-century technologies are opening new possibilities. The prints that collectors buy today may come to be as highly prized as the first fine prints made 600 years ago.

To see some of the prints mentioned in this article, click on the slideshow.

To read Art+Auction's accompanying feature on the Top Print Sales at Auction, click here.

This article originally appeared in the October 2012 issue of Art+Auction.

– Sarah Thornton Quits Art Market Reporting: Name-brand art reporter Sarah Thornton has pulled a Greg Smith, penning a screed for TAR Magazine entitled "Top 10 reasons NOT to write about the art market." In it, the "Seven Days in the Art World" author concludes that the subject is too corrupt to report on and therefore she will shift away from this kind of journalism. Among her complaints? Art market coverage gives "too much exposure to artists who attain high prices" and "the most interesting stories are libelous." Also — and this is our favorite — "The pay is appalling." [TAR Magazine] 

– Budget Cuts Could Close Schwitters Gesamtkunstwert: The final UK studio of Kurt Schwitters could close due to budget woes brought on when Arts Council England cuts its entire £37,000 ($59,000) grant last year. The legendary German artist fled Nazism and landed in the Lake District, where his "Merz Barn" was to be a sprawling Dadaist installation but remained incomplete when he died in 1948. The barn, which served as a precursor to developments in installation art throughout the second half of the 20th century and has been an important pilgrimage site for everyone from Robert Rauschenberg to Damien Hirst, is currently being maintained by the co-directors of the Littoral Arts Trust, which bought the barn in 2006, with their personal funds. [Guardian]

– Knoedler Depended on Suspicious Art: The now-defunct Knoedler Gallery was "substantially dependent" on profits it made from selling a mysterious collection of artwork that is now under federal investigation, according to new papers filed as part of Domenico and Eleanore De Sole's civil suit against the gallery. (The couple is suing over an $8.3-million Mark Rothko painting it now believes to be fake.) Knoedler earned appoximately $60 million between 1996 and 2008 from sales of the now-suspect Rosales collection, according to court papers. [NYT]

– Anxiety About Obama's Art Collection: An article about President Obama's careful navigation of the subject of race during his first term includes an interesting aside: There was palpable nervousness about the artwork the Obamas chose for their private quarters in the White House, including some with race-specific messages. Those artworks included a painting by Glenn Ligon and a Norman Rockwell portrait of Ruby Bridges Hall, the first black child to integrate an elementary school in the South. The Rockwell painting is currently hung just outside the Oval Office. [NYT]

– MI6 Painter Hired for Bond Job: James Hart Dyke has made paintings for MI6 portraying the famed British spy agency's day-to-day activities, served as an embedded artist with U.K. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, and toured with Prince Charles. But his latest subjects may be his most unruly yet: The producers of the James Bond franchise have commissioned him to create official portraits of all six actors who've portrayed the legendary fictional British spy for his 50th anniversary. "What struck me most — and I've tried to get this across in my paintings — is the intriguing interface between the mundane and the totally unexpected," Hart Dyke said. "James Bond represents the perfect union between aesthetics and action." [Guardian]

– French Soccer Community Calls for Zidane Headbutt Statue's Removal: In an open letter to retired French soccer star Zinedine Zidane, presidents of over 30 of France's soccer districts plead with the athlete to demand the removal of Adel Abdessemed's giant statue of the 1998 World Cup final's infamous headbutting incident from the plaza outside the Centre Pompidou. "By taking this firm and honorable position," the district presidents write, "you would testify to your tireless support of the educational values of our soccer, for which many of us continue to fight." [Liberation]

– National Geographic to Sell Archival Images: The National Geographic Society is auctioning off 240 works from its archive of 11.5 million photos and original illustrations at Christie's on December 6. The sale marks the first time any of the institution's collection has been sold, and is expected to bring in about $3 million. Some of National Geographic's most famous photographs will be included, such as a portrait of admiral Robert Peary at his 1908 expedition to the North Pole. [AP]

– It's Not Easy Being Jeffrey Deitch: So concludes Guy Trebay in his lengthy profile of the L.A. MOCA director published (oddly) in this weekend's Sunday Styles section of the New York Times. Described as a "kind of art-world Zelig," Deitch marvels at his current status as persona-non-grata in the L.A. art world. "I've never experienced this kind of distortion," he says, "through if I say anything to counter" the rumors, the increasingly hostile art establishment will "just kill me more." [NYT]

– Pussy Riot Supporters Tests New York Law: Two members of Russian feminist punk collective Pussy Riot still in custody were sent to two prison camps in Soviet-era penal colonies east of Moscow this weekend. Meanwhile, their influence continues to play out in New York, where arrests made during demonstrations held in support of the band may lead to the overturning of an antiquated state law prohibiting groups of more than two people from wearing masks in public. "The mask law, historically and currently, has caused people to conform to a certain way of delivering their speech," said Rachel Weldon, one of three women arrested at a Pussy Riot rally and charged with violating the loitering law. "It’s not just what you’re saying but how you’re saying it that should be protected from interference by the government." [NYT, BBC]

– Exhibition Inspires London Museum Director to Donate Her Body: Sharon Ament, the director of the Museum of London, was so taken with her institution's medical history exhibition "Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men" (see our VIDEO OF THE DAY, below) that she's decided to donate her body to science. "I now realize that my body is a valuable resource that I’ll be leaving for science," Ament said. "There is actually a greater need for bodies now than ever before." Who said art can't change your (after)life? [The Independent]

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Trailer for  "Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men" at the Museum of London

ALSO ON ARTINFO:

Mariko Mori Solo Show to Launch Royal Academy's Contemporary Art Wing in Burlington Gardens

One-Line Reviews: Pithy Takes on Shows by Natalie Frank, Lucas Samaras, and More

3 Models Cash-Strapped Arts Institutions Use to Survive Without Government Help

NYC's IFAAD Fair Kicks Off, and Dealers Adjust for Collectors' Changing Tastes

Shigeru Ban’s Temporary Paper Garage Opens in Gorky Park Tomorrow

FIAC Report: First-Time Participants Bring Flair to the Paris Fair

For more breaking art news throughout the day,
check ARTINFO's In the Air blog.

Center parts have taken, well, center stage in Hollywood. Several red carpet veterans, including Sarah Jessica Parker, Uma Thurman and Lauren Conrad, have recently parted ways—literally!—with intricate updos in favor of middle parts paired with easygoing...

Every descriptor for this car should translate to “slow”: Croation, electric, with a body that’s 28 years old. But no. This clapped-out Bimmer has broken a string of FIA-sanctioned acceleration records. The E30 they call the “Green Monster” coaxes 600...

“We had two kids and my wife was pregnant with our third, and we had to go to two different Thanksgivings to make everyone happy,” he says. “And on the way home, I said, ‘That’s the last time we are leaving the house for the holidays.’ ” Vetri has...

Halloween is one of those amazing days where fashionistas everywhere are free to dress as crazy as they want. It's also a day when we can have a lot of fun with our makeup, without risking looking like a drag queen. To help get tips for rocking the...