Giclee Prints

Giclee Prints - What's your opinion?

Artist Bryce Brown recently emailed his client list with a question about creating limited edition giclee prints of his original artworks.

I now have an email list of around 70 people. This list in comprised largely of collectors of my work (and some future collectors!) from New Zealand, Canada, USA, Switzerland, Belgium, France, UK and Australia.

The reason for this message is to get some valuable feedback from you with regards to limited edition prints. If the collector of a particular piece was completely against this idea, I would not include that piece with any of the works to be reproduced. The prints would be of exceptional quality, printed with a highly UV resistant oil based ink, on canvas which would be stretched onto a frame much like the original. This would also be varnished - like the original. If the financial investment of the painting(s) you hold is of major importance - and you are concerned that the value could be affected, I feel that this would not be the case at all. In fact, I have heard the opposite from other successful artists - awareness of the original painting through exposure from limited edition prints can increase the value of the original and can create quite a demand for it.

Any paintings that have been created through a commission process would not be included as I realise that these have important personal value to the collector.

At the end of the day, any artist will always have the right to reproduce their own work - usually done as a way of creating a passive income and increasing exposure through having these prints in places that would not normally house original paintings.

I have given this much thought and toiled over the idea for some years. I now feel however that in a careful and controlled way that it is time to do this and would like to hear you constructive thoughts on the matter. I look forward to hearing from you.

Even if you don't own an original painting by Bryce Brown, what do you think of artists creating limited edition giclee prints of their original artworks? Post your comments below.

Not sure what a giclee print is? We have the answer in this post "What is a giclee print"