Artfinder has always been a place where art lovers can discover, enjoy and buy beautiful and affordable art. Over the years, we’ve helped thousands of artists to sell original paintings, drawings, collages, reliefs, and sculptures, as well as limited edition handmade prints, photography and digital art.
Today, we’re announcing a very exciting new step in Artfinder’s journey - we’re introducing our artists’ range of limited edition fine art prints. We see this as an important avenue to making art more accessible and affordable, while also reaching a wider collector base. As we grow, the availability of limited edition fine art prints will help show that art can be owned by anyone, not just the elite few.
What are limited edition fine art prints?
A limited edition fine art print is a print of an original painting, drawing or collage which is limited to a specific number of editions. You should know what that number is (on Artfinder, it's a maximum of 150), as it will be marked and hand-signed by the artist on the print itself. Once that specific print run sells out, there will be no other editions of that image made by the artist.
The quality and process of creating a limited edition fine art print is also important. As Dario Illari, founder of London’s Jealous Gallery and Artfinder’s prints curator, explains:
“When making our fine art limited editions [at Jealous Gallery] we firstly have the original work photographed or scanned at our studio. Then, as with making any edition, we look through our paper stock, making sure we find a suitable shade of white and have selected the right weight and paper texture for the edition. When that’s done, we can set about colour proofing the edition, making sure the colours are true. Only when all of these steps and decisions have been made do we make the edition, which all comes before the final decisions on border sizes and paper edges.”
With this in mind, it’s super important that we differentiate between limited and open edition prints. As mentioned, a limited edition print will never be reproduced again, however the same is not true for open edition prints.
Think about art open editions in the same way you would posters, postcards, calendars or cushions. They’re a print of an artwork that can be sold anywhere, from museums to souvenir shops and ahem, other large e-commerce retailers. If you buy an open edition print from a store or online, it’s not a limited edition, and as such, the quality of process and paper are usually compromised for the sake of volume.
Therefore, when you compare open edition prints to limited edition fine art prints, the difference between the quality and value becomes much clearer.
“There are new digital limited edition fine art prints of Bacon’s work which are very covetable. In fact, the Basquiat Foundation has just released new editions which are made from original canvases,” says Dario.
What’s the difference between handmade prints and fine art prints?
At Artfinder, we only offer original and limited edition art, but when it comes to prints, they are now available to purchase as either handmade prints or fine art prints.
Artfinder has a 300-strong community of handmade printmakers who create works of art using traditional printmaking processes, hence the ‘handmade’ aspect to this technique. Artists such as Mariann Johansen Ellis, Ieuan Edwards and Margaret Mallows are great examples of the talent and commitment required to become masters of traditional processes.
Pssst, want to learn more about what goes into creating handmade prints? Read on here.
The same creativity and vision is still at play with limited edition fine art prints. As Dario reiterates:
“The collectible and beautiful lithographs of Toulouse-Lautrec, Lowry and even Bacon were made with printing methods of their time, and now we are using the methods of our time to make editions.”
Today, artists use modern technology afforded to them to be able to offer their paintings or drawings in limited editions. And these aren’t just your regular run-of-the-mill posters. At Artfinder, we expect our artists to use great care when creating their prints, as well as including an accompanying signed and numbered Certificate of Authenticity.
Why are we offering limited edition fine art prints?
There’s a number of reasons why Artfinder has introduced limited edition fine art prints to the site. But at the very heart of our decision is our mission of making art more accessible and affordable.
We continually hear from customers describing a painting they love, but they either a) can’t quite afford it or b) regret not buying the piece before it’s sold. With this in mind, we strongly believe art lovers should have access to art that speaks to them personally while also meeting their budget.
We know that purchasing a limited edition fine art print is often the first step in an art lover’s journey to collecting art. As Dario says, “an art collection is something that is built over time and as such, will grow and develop. It will even go off into different directions that you might have never considered.”
It’s also because it’s our mission to make art a viable career for artists. When you buy a poster or a postcard, it’s likely that whoever’s produced the poster is making a decent cut of the sale, with the artist themselves only receiving a small percentage of the profit. We’re now able to allow artists to sell limited edition fine art prints of their best pieces, while paying them exactly the same percentage as we would for their paintings, drawings and collages.
So, no matter if you’re in the market to purchase a one-off painting or a limited edition fine art print, you’ll be supporting an artist to do what they love.
Art is for everyone, after all.
Cover image via Paul Bennett, prints available
