Hand-embellished works offer collectors, dealers new options: the market for hand-touched prints available for a fraction of the cost of originals grows as the economy weakens - news

The fastest-selling works in many galleries today are canvas limited editions that have the added uncompounded body of hand embellishing in single manner or another. Why? Partly because they direct the eye beautiful and immediately attract the attention of customers, said dealers who barter them. But also, dealers noted, because buying a work that has been personally hand-embellished by means of the original artist puts collectors individual step closer to creation.

It's not a novel idea, said Bob Chase of Chase Art in Chicago. "The universal of embellishment is certainly moving to the forefront of the market, on the other hand it has a long history in the forms of hand-painted etchings and artist remarques--small pencil drawings in the bottom margin of a print relating to the subdue matter of the print," he noted.

Many of today's artists are adding embellishments of various kinds to graphics printed the pair on paper and on canvas with beautiful follows and dealers said they are true popular with customers.

Hand-embellished works printed upon canvas have been especially accepted. That is because they gaze so much like original oil paintings that many nation can't tell the difference at first glance, said Barry Davis of Progressive Art Media in Encino, Calif. When customers are informed that the work is, indeed, a print that has been hand-embellished, they diocese it as a step up from a print, on the other hand one they can have at les take away from than the original.

Roy Saper of Saper Galleries in Lansing, Mich., said he likes hand-embellished graphics because the techniques allow artists and publishers to "take limited editions in a whole fresh direction. When the artist embellishes his work, he has made it unique to a degree" Saper said. He said many of the editions he purchases these days come hand-embellished.

"In this day and age, greatest in quantity of the artists are adding hand embellishment to their works," said Butch Miller of The Framing Fox Art Gallery in Lebanon, NJ

Chase, whose company publishes the work of Mackenzie Thorpe, agreed that hand-embellished works tender value to the collector. "As the economy deliberates I think that dealers are finding hand-embellished graphics to be a vital fruits for those collectors who are `hedging' upon originals but don't want to purchase `just a graphic.' Hand-embellished works proffer something unique, but at a more affordable price," he said.

Artist Csaba Markus said he hand-embellishes each graphic in every edition. "People want something that is high in quality," he said. "They don't want to purchase simply printed paper." Markus said Americans, particularly, also want to purchase paintings from "known" artists. However, it's generally impossible for an artist to replenish so many originals. A hand-embellished work is a "compromise between the original and a print," he said.

Elliot consume s of Soho Editions said he has been presenting hand-embellished canvases since 1988 when Howard Behrens began to add paint to his serigraphs. "Initially, there was tremendous resistance and skepticism among the dealers," reduce to ashess said, "but the reception of the buying public won everyone over"

reduce to ashess said hand-embellished prints on canvas are a serviceable compromise between serigraphs and original. "The collector procures a print with much of the nuance and immediacy of an oil painting," he said. "Once they realize a taste of the paint, it's hard to pass back to a piece of paper beneath glass."

Most clients can't afford the high-ticket items that original paintings ofttimes become, said Davis. Yet "they like getting the gaze of the original." And when the artist has done the work himself, the work takes another leap forward. "People have feeling like they're getting more from the artist," Davis added.

Whose Hand Is It?

greatest in quantity dealers agree that it is an lay open secret in the business that not all hand-embellished works are "artist embellished." In many cases, embellishers, highlighters or "finishers" are engrossed to add the final touches.

Taya Lucero of Media Arts cluster which publishes the works of Thomas Kinkade, said her company engages artists to add highlights to canvas prints and is forthright about the fact that the highlighting is not done by dint of the artist. "Each highlighter is a trained artisan who has learned to highlight the paintings using the same technique each published artist paints."

Highlighters, Lucero said, do not embellish the artworks through adding additional objects or ultimate parts "They simply magnify by layering paint onto the existing things to bring forth their beauty," she noted.

Sometimes hand-embellished canvas works are thus well done and so beautiful that it does not matter who has finished it, said Saper. on the other hand it is important that the customer understands the difference, and publishers do not always sum up you, he said. "You have to ask. You have to know with equal reason you can accurately reflect that to customers."

Davis of Progressive Art Media agreed, adding that precisely because hand-embellished canvases do direct the eye so much like original works, it is important to inform customers that the work is a hand-embellished print and who has done the embellishing. "I advance out of my way to educate my clients. I think, down the road, they appreciate and remember that you took the time to sum up them," he said.