Lithographs and Print Collecting

Young family guy RT writes that he likes 1940s lithographs in a realist style. He picked up two nudes online by Emil Weddige, Michigan, (1907-2001). RT wants to know why it has a fraction by Weddige’s name of “5/30,” and if he has purchased at a fair price for $500. 

The piece is large at 32×28” and the paper is yellowed: it is a colored lithograph created in 1945. The theme is the horror of WWII and the peace found in simple things (the sound of the sea).

My younger clients are now buying vintage original prints in silkscreens, lithography, etchings and engravings, woodcuts, and serigraphs. This is a worldwide trend, as today the print market (not reproductions but original prints) represents almost one third of all auction purchases, mainly by younger buyers who covet the idea of a big name artist on their wall whom they can afford, and bought from a reputable auction house or dealer. 

To have made a wise purchase, RT, you would have to know:

– The medium. What is a print? Various print mediums allow the artist to make more than one image of the same work, again and again, in either an “open edition” (with no limit to the number of images made), or in a “limited edition” (that’s what the fraction on RT’s print means – he has number 3 of a “PULL” of 50 images from the same lithographic stone). Limited editions are expressed as a fraction in the margin (the blank space under the print itself) usually around the artist’s graphite signature (if she/he has signed it) or on the opposite side bottom. Often in older prints this is covered by the matting; in Asian (woodcut) prints (vintage) you will NOT see this done.

– RT would have known how to research value to make a wise buy. Because RT’s print is an original, it is unique. Its uniqueness, however, is in the context of being part of a series of 30 JUST LIKE IT (but possibly NOT alike in conditions or hand coloring). If his print has brothers and sisters, you can find prices paid on my favorite sites: ArtNet, Ask Art, ArtPrice, and Mutual Art. RT must know the name of the artist to access data, as these databases are NOT Google Image search-style, but listings of prices PAID.

RT asks: What is the trend? Will I be able to find more 1940s postwar prints? For sure! The print market is flourishing for all artists, first tier especially, and postwar and contemporary artists more so. Like everything else in the art world, prices are driven by an artist’s FAME and NAME, and once an artist’s work on canvas (always considered of greater value than his/her prints) sells for millions, the print market for that artist jumps. 

Take Ai Weiwei for example, who uses his print studio as a sales arena for his international projects. He keeps his number of produced editions HIGH (making over 1,000 of the same image) and keeps the cost low. A young collector can own a piece for $2,600. Warhol’s highest price was for a print, a screenprint of Marilyn selling for almost $200,000,000. So today RT can buy a Warhol print but he will pay for the name; I would suggest he look into other strategic “buys,” Modern/Postwar artists such as Diebenkorn and Man Ray, and land art prints such as those by Christo. 

There are some bargains today, but there is competition: print market sales have increased 49% since 2021. Buying online is relatively safe since prints have a verifiable publisher, are in a numbered edition, and are standardized. Young collectors without the means to buy a Lichtenstein or Haring might do what RT plans to do: specialize in an ERA and STYLE that is underrated (1940s realist prints). 

Look for prints that are signed twice, once in the “plate” in the image itself, and usually in pen or graphite. Look for a fraction and look for a LOW
fraction. Better yet, look for the initials “AP” which means you have a work printed for the artist’s personal collection (there are often more than ONE AP in a series however). 

The value of the work by Emil Weddige (1907-2001) is $500. Interestingly, Weddige was posthumously featured in a recent show at the Flint (Michigan) Institute of Arts’ Rust Belt Artists, where he was listed as Ann Arbor’s pre-eminent lithographer. An ad in Ann Arbor News in 1945, around the date RT’s image was created blatantly says: “A Possible Christmas Gift: Lithographs by Emil Weddige, $5 to $25, telephone 2-4956.”