Increasingly sophisticated printing technologies are drawing fire in corporate art collection circles.
The Vancouver Club recently sold Emily Carr's The Crazy Stair painting for $3.39 million at an auction to Polygon chairman Michael Audain.
Audain, who is a longtime Vancouver Club member described the giclee practice as being “almost obscene” because he believes in art's authenticity.
In the process, however, the Vancouver Club reduced its security and insurance costs while receiving a significant capital infusion.
The private club had loaned the painting, also known as The Crooked Staircase, to the Vancouver Art Gallery years ago and hung a replica that was produced using giclee technology, which essentially creates high-end photocopies. Even though the original painting hung in the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Vancouver Club was still on the hook for some costs.
Heffel Fine Art Auction House, which sold the work at its November 30 auction in Toronto, is giving the Vancouver Club a new giclee replica that was created after discoloured varnish was removed from the original painting.
Hanging giclee copies of paintings, however, even if they are clearly identified as such, is controversial.
The Vancouver Club would not say how it plans to use the sale's proceeds. Other corporate art owners operate on the general principle that money generated from selling paintings is used to fund purchases of original art from contemporary artists and not for general operations.
Fasken Martineau LLP, for example, sold a small A.Y. Jackson painting at Heffel's November auction and generated enough money to buy a painting named Circa from 37-year-old former Vancouverite Etienne Zack, Fasken partner Iain Mant told Business in Vancouver.
"We don't have a line item in our budget for art," Mant said, "so we approach buying art on an opportunistic basis."
Mant added that Fasken rejected the idea of getting a giclee copy of its former A.Y. Jackson painting because the point of selling the art was to refresh the firm's collection and to support local artists.
Rennie Marketing Systems owner Bob Rennie collects art using the same philosophy.
"If you decide you're going to live without a painting, then replace the art with something from a young artist," Rennie said. "Maybe in 50 years that art will sell for as much as the Emily Carr did."
Rennie said the Vancouver Club's decision to sell expensive art raises a red flag for art donors.
The Vancouver Club would not say how it acquired the Emily Carr painting, but Rennie said it's not uncommon for people to donate or bequeath art to charities, non-profit organizations and private clubs.
In those situations, it is important for the donor to explicitly state conditions tied to the gift.
"Donors have to think about what legacy they are leaving," Rennie said. "If the gift is going to be just sold for money, then maybe you're better off just giving money."
Corporate art budgets smaller than they used to be
Heffel Fine Art Auction House principal David Heffel fondly remembers the 1970s and ’80s when corporations had larger art budgets and invested enthusiastically in original art.
He pointed to a number of factors that have radically changed the corporate art scene, including tight operating margins, the rise of open workplaces with fewer walls and increasingly sophisticated technology that creates high-quality reproductions of original art for a fraction of the price of the original.
Increasingly, Heffel said, companies are willing to consider buying art that uses a form of digital imaging called giclee, which is basically a sophisticated ink-jet printing process. High-resolution photos are downloaded to a giclee machine, which can produce an exact replica in paint on paper, canvas or even aluminum.
Galleries sometimes sell limited numbers of giclee replicas with the artist’s permission.
“The [Fairmont] Hotel Vancouver bought a copy of one of Art Works Gallery’s artists because the original wouldn’t have been in the budget,” Art Works Gallery consultant Rodney Clark told BIV.
Technology, however, could soon relegate a giclee painting to being old school.
Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum last summer became the first major museum in the world to launch a fundraising campaign that involves selling virtually indistinguishable three-dimensional reproductions of its pieces, such as Vincent Van Gogh’s famous painting Sunflowers.
Each “relievo” replica is created in partnership with Fujifilm using reliefology. The process involves a 3D scan of the painting so brush strokes can be recreated digitally.
Prints for Sunflowers are numbered, limited to 260, and cost more than $39,000 each – much less than the original, which, though priceless, is estimated to be worth more than $42 million.
