LONDON—The London Original Print Fair, which closed on April 26 after a four-day run, is something of an institution in the British capital. The 24-year-old event harks back to a time past — before Frieze Art Fair and the contemporary art boom — and yet it seems to have had the last laugh economically this year, with steady crowds and good sales by the time of ARTINFO’s Friday visit. Located in the galleries of the Royal Academy, the fair featured some 50 mostly British exhibitors (with a few exceptions from the United States, Germany, Israel, and France), their wares ranging from 17th-century etchings to reproduction lithographs of original Rolling Stones tour posters created by graphic designer John Pasche in the 1970s.

The latter could be found at Eyestorm, a London-based gallery that does the bulk of its business online, with occasional exhibitions at different venues. “For us it has gone really well,” Guy Riza, a sales manager with the gallery, enthused. “We gave up posting red dots for each edition sold of John Pasche’s Rolling Stones tour posters, as almost half have gone now, and it’s an edition of 150, each at £460 [$670].” He said Eyestorm had also done well with work by Vic Reeves, specifically Rook and Water Rail, two 2006 bird paintings by the British comedian and sometime artist that were selling at £253 apiece. More expensive works were moving somewhat more slowly, but a print of Damien Hirst’s trademark spots — titled Opium (2000) and priced at £5,500 — garnered repeated dots nonetheless. “I’ve given away over 300 business cards, so I think we will get even more sales after the fair closes,” Riza added.

At the opposite end of the print spectrum, Christopher Mendez was also pleased with traffic at the booth of his eponymous London gallery. “It’s going remarkably well,” he said of his sales in 17th- and 18th-century etchings. “We are one of the few here who deal with the old stuff, for which there is a small but remarkably strong and loyal market.” The red dots accenting the monochrome works he had on view included one for Engraving After Rubens (1621), a work in a three states by Lucas Vorsterman the Elder that was dedicated to King Philip IV of Spain. It had sold to an American museum for £1,500.

Richard Selby, a co-director of London’s Redfern Gallery, refuted the suggestion that the market for prints might be buoyant as a consequence of collectors switching over from more expensive originals. “It’s a totally different market,” he said. “This fair is busy because it’s something that if you are a serious print collector — and there are people who specifically seek prints — you don’t miss. For us it’s been perhaps a little quieter than our previous 20 years here, but we have still had some good sales.” These included White Rhino (2008), a chalk portrait of a rhinoceros in an edition of 75, by Paul Emsley, that was going for £1,000.

“The print buyers are definitely a very specific, loyal group,” agreed Frankie Somerset and Harriet Lund, assistants at London and New York’s Marlborough Graphics, which was showing a curated selection of Paula Rego editions. Rego’s dramatic, figurative etching and aquatint works, which tackle the subject of female circumcision, were fresh from the studio, having been finished by the artist only two weeks prior. “We’ve had lots of inquiries, though no sales yet,” Lund and Somerset added.

Elsewhere, London’s Sims Reed Gallery was exhibiting an edition of Peter Doig’s sultry landscape Canoe Lake (1997), priced at £3,500 and in an edition of 35. Also hanging in the booth was David Hockney’s Vertical Dogs (1995), a red and blue etching and aquatint of two sleeping dogs in an edition of 80. Marked at £7,500, Vertical Dogs was “yet to sell, but we’ve sold two other Hockneys at the £10–20K mark to a British buyer,” said gallery director Lyndsey Ingram. Perhaps if anything, such sales suggest that the current art market is akin to Hockney’s subjects: sleeping, maybe, but certainly not dead.