By now, you might have already heard that photo icon William Eggleston is being sued by art collector Jonathan Sobel for recreating some of his own classic images in a larger, digital format because the originals were sold as "Limited Edition" prints. In a nutshell, Sobel had purchased a bunch of these Limited Edition originals and is now concerned about their diminished financial worth as an effect of the new prints. Sobel is seeking unspecified damages and requests that Eggleston be forced to cease production of additional varieties of his older prints. This is a touchy subject for both photographers and collectors and is sure to have quite a momentous outcome. So let's talk about it!
I will first share with you a shortened version of an article found in The Wall Street Journal for those of you who have not yet heard about this news and will follow with my own analysis.
The Story
*(This is a shortened, summarized version of an article by Kelly Crow for the Wall Street Journal. The full version of this article appeared April 5, 2012, on page A17 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Collector Sues Over Copies):
Memphis photographer William Eggleston first earned fame in the mid-1960s by taking lyrical images of American suburbia in color, rather than classic black-and-white.
On April 4th, 2012, New York collector Jonathan Sobel filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Mr. Eggleston, alleging that the artist's recent decision to print and sell oversized versions of some of his famous images in a Christie's auction has diluted the rarity—and therefore the resale value—of the originals.
The gem of Mr. Sobel's collection (which includes 192 photographs by Eggleston) is arguably "Memphis (Tricycle)." The artist took the photo in 1970 and used a now-defunct dye-transfer process to print 20 copies, which were later numbered and sold as a limited edition. Two years ago Mr. Sobel said he paid another collector roughly $250,000 for one of these 17-inch-wide works, and he was pleased a year later when another from the same edition sold at Christie's for $266,500, potentially boosting the value of his own.
But Mr. Sobel said he was "shocked" last month when Mr. Eggleston enlisted Christie's New York to sell a new, 5-foot-wide digital-print version of the same tricycle, which the artist had priced to sell for up to $300,000. It wound up selling for $578,500, the highest price ever paid at auction for a single Eggleston photograph. The image was part of a group of 36 newly made, larger photos that Mr. Eggleston sold for $5.9 million at Christie's.
Thanks to that sale, prices for Mr. Eggleston's works have recalibrated across the board, only now the bigger prints—not the smaller originals—account for seven of the artist's top 10 prices. Mr. Sobel owns at least nine vintage works that were resurrected by Mr. Eggleston in larger form at the Christie's sale.
"I feel betrayed," Mr. Sobel said. "How can you sell a limitless limited edition?" John Cahill, Eggleston's lawyer, said the photographer printed the new editions in unmistakably different sizes in part to distinguish them from his earlier editions; the artist also re-cropped the tricycle photograph and altered its colors slightly.
Fay Gold, an Atlanta art advisor who once handled sales of Mr. Eggleston's work, said only time and art history will tell which of Mr. Eggleston's tricycles, old or new, will come out on top. "People want the larger ones now, but over time I think the older ones will be seen as more important," she said. "There's nothing like owning vintage."
*(End shortened summary of Wall Street Journal article originally written by Kelly Crow)
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My Analysis
Fay Gold says "There's nothing like owning vintage." True, but let's not forget that there is also nothing like owning an original William Eggleston photograph printed using the dye-transfer process! This particular photographic process is now obsolete. In the mid 90's, Eastman Kodak ceased production of its dye-transfer materials. It is my understanding that not only is the image quality produced by the dye-transfer process not replicable, dye-transfer prints are extraordinarily archival and will maintain their quality over many, many years. Considering Eggleston is often called the "Father of Color Photography," the coloring process he chose to create his images with is obviously very important. The name William Eggleston and the dye-transfer process go hand-in-hand. Even if you were able to successfully replicate the image quality of a dye-transfer print, it still wouldn't be a dye-transfer print. An Eggleston photograph printed with the dye-transfer process is truly a piece of history! Eggleston's images have always been called mundane and it is just that, ironically, which makes the images so special. Banal subjects suddenly become breathtaking in a William Eggleston print. I believe that the dye-transfer process has strengthened this notion. The care that it takes to create a photograph with this process and the very precise, rich colors just make these typically unnoticed scenes even more special.
To go back to what Fay Gold said, "People want the larger ones now, but over time I think the older ones will be seen as more important." I completely agree that even if, currently, the new variations of the classic prints are selling for more than the originals, in the long run, the originals will prevail. One could argue that any digital reproduction of a film photograph is less special than the one printed in the darkroom, but a photograph printed with this now obsolete process by the photographer known for using it versus a digital reproduction with altered color and cropping? This is a no-brainer. The original prints will come out on top. So why are these new over-sized prints currently selling for up to $578,500 each? Admittedly, I don't know the first thing about being an art collector (you need money for that). I'm assuming that there must be an initial excitement about and hype surrounding more classic Eggleston works being available in general that would result in an unusually high selling price. I do believe that these new works were marketed toward contemporary art collectors rather than photography traditionalists. I'd like to think that someone willing to drop more than half a million dollars on an Eggleston photograph understands his place in history. So could it really be that the contemporary art collector simply doesn't care about the process or the history and just wants something truly grand to hang on their wall? Or, perhaps more far-fetched, maybe these buyers got a whiff of scandal when they heard about the new prints and jumped at the chance to buy a different kind of history that would become more valuable as the result of the controversy. Controversy has, as we all know, always held a huge place in the art world.
What I've been pondering is: why would Jonathan Sobel ask the courts to forbid Eggleston to make more new prints if he really worries that his originals are going to sell for less money than the new prints? Maybe there's something I'm not getting (like I said, I'm not an art collector), but unless Sobel was planning on selling his own collection in the near future he would still end up with the more financially valuable pieces. Logic is telling me that the more copies there are of something, the less valuable they will be. Sobel, of all people, knows this! That's why he's concerned with his Limited Edition staying limited rather than limitless - if you make more, value will go down. If this is so, then why are the additions to the Limited Edition selling for so much more? Because they're not part of the Limited Edition. They're a whole new beast. New market, new process, new format, new size, new crop, new color, and new buyer. This brings us right back to the beginning. Eggleston should be allowed to produce new variations of old work because they are just that: new variations. I think if Sobel really wants to speed up the solution to his problem, he should encourage the production of more over-sized digital variations so that they become more accessible and, as a result, lessen in value. Everybody wins! Eggleston and his family continue to make lots of money, more fans and collectors get to have their very own Eggleston photographs to cherish (or sell, or whatever it is you kids are doing these days), Sobel's originals once again become the most valuable both financially and culturally, and the world is a happier, more beautiful place where there are more Egglestons to go around and more stunning photographs on display.
To me, the winner of this case is clear. What do you think? Do you know anything about the buyers of these new variations? I would love to hear your thoughts!