Prints Can Be a Risky Business
We typically advertise that we don’t buy prints because the print market was co-opted in the 1970s by ne’er-do-wells, exaggerators and outright fraudsters. We do often buy earlier prints, pre-1970s, created by artists before WWII. They were generally small, and black and white.
After WWII, Manhattan supplanted Paris as the center of the art world with various modern, contemporary, abstract expressionist, hard-edge and pop art works. These brought forth multiple editions of large, colorful compositions popular during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Emerging technology of screen prints and serigraphy seemed to pay homage to the French nouveau poster era — but with a fresh look.
$30,000-$1,000,000 / 1960s-’70s PRINTS BY ANDY WARHOL, BARNETT NEWMAN AND JASPER JOHNS
Modern Contemporary Prints
These modern contemporary prints by select artists showed incredible growth, and we are achieving record results for our clients with limited editions made between 1955 and 1975 by artists with New York studios. From left, we achieved $30,000 for our local client for this Andy Warhol World Wildlife Fund print.
This Barnett Newman 1963-64 lithograph, from a set of 18 images, has increased 10 times in value in 20 years. We have a client seeking to add the set of 18 to their collection. Their budget? Over 1 million dollars — for one set of prints. We are paying $10,000 to $50,000+ for the 1970s flag-and-target silkscreens by abstract expressionist Jasper Johns.
This is an archival article formerly written and is for informational purposes only. The valuations in this article have likely changed since it was first written.
