This story begins where most would end. On April 16, 1828, the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya died at the age of 82. It is often said that an artist’s work becomes more valuable in death than in life, as it dawns on potential buyers that scarcity is now the factor in which works of art can no longer be created. Buyers of Goya prints needn’t have worried, however, because far more of his prints were produced after his death than before. All of the artist’s printing plates became the property of the Prado Museum in Madrid shortly after his death, and the museum regularly leases them to various publishers to bring in funds.
These are posthumous works of art—Goyas, sure, but not ones the artist ever saw or authorized for sale. These works fall into the gray area of the art trade, and are not just for Goya. Graphic art prints, photographic prints and sculptures are all produced using plates, negatives and molds that can be reused at any time.
“Posthumous versions of Diane Arbus and Peter Hujar’s work emerged to satisfy exhibition demands,” Christian Whitworth, director of San Francisco’s Fraenkel Gallery, told the Observer, noting that “collectors and private institutions alike collect both lifetime and posthumous works.” Indeed, most of the Arbus works in the institution’s collections are posthumous prints, as he ended his life without concern for future market interests. Whitworth confirmed that buyers pay more for lifetime prints, sometimes called “classic” prints, even though the price gap between a work created during the artist’s lifetime and after the artist’s passing varies widely. “Arbus’s lifetime prints are often worth 10 times more than his posthumous prints;” the price difference between a lifetime and a posthumous Hujar print is not nearly that great.
Goya had a much longer life than Arbus, but he oversaw the creation of only one edition of his set of 80 known works. The Caprichos in 1799. A second edition was produced after his death in 1855. In 1937, when the definitive survey of his photographic work was published, there were 12 editions. (There is no record of how many other editions were created in the nearly 90 years since then.) His most famous collection of pictures, 82 works. Disasters of Warfirst published in 1863. By 1937, seven editions had been published.
In 2013, the Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York presented an exhibition of newly created metal sculptures by Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) produced from molds found in the artist’s studio. Kasmin represented the Brancusi estate and was involved in the decision to create the posthumous pieces, which are worth up to $4.5 million. There was some debate at the time about how true the artist’s intention was to these posthumous works, as Brancusi often worked over each piece of the model—polishing here, roughing it up there—to make it all different, while these new sculptures were all shiny and smooth. Hybrids? Knock-offs? Posthumous is the only word that adequately describes it.
There are other examples. The United States booth at the 2007 Venice Biennale featured an untitled sculpture by Félix González-Torres, who had died 11 years earlier and had left rough sketches of what he thought the final work of art would look like. Guggenheim Museum curator Nancy Spector planned the creation of a work based on those paintings for the international exhibition. No one is wrong with Spector, but what the guests experienced was his best guess.
There is no expiration date for producing posthumous works. “There are a number of artists in their market where you will find posthumous prints, especially Old Master Prints,” Monica Brown, managing director of fine art and head of the prints and reproductions department at Freeman’s Auctions, told the Observer. For example, because Rembrandt’s bronze plates still exist, you will find many impressions after his death in the many centuries since he passed. Life is short, but art goes on.
With Arbus, Hujar, Brancusi, Goya and Rembrandt, there is nothing illegal going on, and the lower-priced but almost identical versions of lifetime masterpieces allow buyers with less money to acquire works of art with famous names attached. (More copies also allow more people to see these works of art in person.) Collectors of all stripes should learn enough about the posthumous art market to know if a piece is worth the price. Or to put it another way, knowing that something is an investable work of art or a Goya-esque souvenir.
A gray area in the art market
As noted, works of art produced after death are often less valuable than those created during the artist’s lifetime. Christine Berlane, who manages the sale of prints and reproductions of Eldred’s auction in East Dennis, Massachusetts, told the Observer about the sale of Isabel Bishop’s book titled. 14th Street Oriental. “We entered it incorrectly as a written proof before the edition, meaning that it was printed on his press in small numbers and was rare and desirable. edition of Bishop’s prints.” Given that information, the seller is offering reprints for a much lower estimate of $200-300.
That said, the value of a work of art does not always depend on whether the artist was alive when it was created. The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation authorized the creation of portrait programs of the artist (1946-89), usually in larger sizes (49 × 60 centimeters or 60 × 60 centimeters) than those created during Mapplethorpe’s lifetime, which vary in price “from low to mid-six figures,” according to the foundation, foundation director Jore told Adil the price director. a lifetime print by the artist—the largest is 16×20 inches or 20×24 inches—is $25,000-30,000. On the other hand, Davi Weston, owner of the Weston Gallery in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, said that the “rare and beautiful works” of his grandfather Edward Weston sold for more than $1 million, while the one printed by the photographer’s youngest son Cole from Edward Weston’s original negative after the artist’s death is in today’s market for 195000. Cole’s older brother Brett Weston also made prints of his father’s work under his father’s supervision when he was no longer able to make his own prints due to Parkinson’s disease, and they sold for prices close to those made by Edward Weston himself, although not by much.
More ironically, one can buy a Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) “mural”, which will be created by specially trained assistants who manage his estate, for less than when the artist was alive. In fact, LeWitt never did any of his murals during his lifetime, always leaving the work to helpers.
In some cases, the market is flooded with paintings and sculptures produced many years after the death of the artists, resulting in works of questionable quality that cause confusion among buyers. The painter and printmaker William Hogarth died in 1764, but editions of his engravings continued until 1850, printed by his widow and later by his cousin, and then by a series of publishers who bought printing plates from anyone who owned them.
The worst example of posthumous art is generally acknowledged to be the bronze sculpture of Frederic Remington (1861-1909). Alice Duncan, director of the Gerald Peters Gallery in New York City, called some of the Remington artists “a complete can of worms.” After the artist’s death in 1909, the plans were thrown under his will and his widow, Eva. After his death in 1918, programs were released without any authorization, which Duncan called “midnight characters.”
“One imagines that they were created in other bronzes” – referred to in the field of photography as surmoulage – “or in vessels that were not visible when the estate lawyers asked all the molds to be destroyed,” he said. Editions have continued to be made and produced to this day, for example, by the Frederic Remington Art Museum in Ogdensburg, New York, which earns a third of its annual revenue from reproductions. You may also call them souvenirs or decorations, but they are certainly not practical investments. “In our gallery, we call it boat anchors or door closers,” Duncan said, adding that one often sees ‘Remingtons’ of this type on eBay. The Gerald Peters Gallery will only accept Remington sculptures that can be proven to have been produced during the artist’s lifetime or produced on the authority of his widow.
An ounce of prevention
Buyers looking at posthumous works of art should do their own research or hire a consultant—preferably a dealer familiar with this material—to determine when and by whom a particular work was produced. One of the first sources experts consult is the catalog raisonné (a published annotated list of all the works of art known to the artist), such as Thomas Harris’ Goya’s writings or Michael D. Greenbaum’s Icons of the West: Photography by Frederick Remington. This provides images that can be checked against the artwork one wants to buy, noting when certain editions were produced, the number of copies made (if that information is available), which printmaker or creator made the edition, changes made to the images and the quality of the impressions. Greenbaum even went so far as to examine the hardware used in the various systems, and found that Remington’s 1905 housing system. The Great Serpentissued on May 31, 1918, contained more tin and lead than was produced after the death of 1920. (Metal testing is not an uncommon tool in verifying the authenticity of images.)
Joe Stanfield, director of fine art at Wright Auctions, recommends that potential buyers request a printed copy of the artwork’s provenance—its ownership history—which will reveal an unbroken chain of custody, as well as where and when the artwork was purchased. That information may not be available for older works, such as Rembrandt, rather than Remington, but it may be complete for Hogarth or Goya. But, he added, it pays to work with experts. “I may not be able to say when the work was created, but there are professors who know how to look at it, they can save you a lot of money and heartache,” he said.
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