London Original Print Fair

July/August 2009 Fair Reviews

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Damien Hirst Bridget Riley David Hockney The Appendix: Portraits of a Marriage, a Man in a Speedo, and Jesse Helms The Appendix: Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Pipilotti Rist, and Paul H-O Warhols Send Sotheby’s Soaring Art Collector and Former Lover Resolve Hirst Dispute Body Image

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LONDON—This 24-year-old event harks back to a time past — before the Frieze Art Fair and the contemporary-art boom — and yet it seems to have had the last laugh this year, with steady crowds and good sales. The fair featured some 50 mostly British exhibitors (with exceptions from the United States, Germany, Israel, and France), their wares ranging from 17th-century etchings to fresh work by contemporary figures, such as Damien Hirst and David Hockney. A record-breaking 9,000 visitors were recorded.

London’s Sims Reed Gallery was exhibiting David Hockney’s Vertical Dogs, 1995, an etching and aquatint of two sleeping dogs from an edition of 80. Marked at £7,500 ($11,900), the work did not sell, but gallery director Lyndsey Ingram said they sold two other Hockneys at the £10,000 to £20,000 mark ($15,900-31,800) to a British buyer. Perhaps such deals suggest that the current art market is akin to Hockney’s subjects: sleeping but not dead. The gallery also found a buyer for Bridget Riley’s 2004 screenprint Fold, from an edition of 250.

Eyestorm, a London-based gallery that does the bulk of its business online, reported strong sales. Gallery manager Guy Riza said he sold so many reproduction lithographs of 1970s Rolling Stones tour posters created by graphic designer John Pasche that the gallery "gave up posting red dots." These were priced at £460 ($670) each and available in an edition of 150. More expensive works were moving slowly, with the exception of Damien Hirst’s 2000 print Opium, which was quite popular. "I’ve given away over 300 business cards, so I think we’ll get more sales after the fair," added Riza.

"It’s been a little quieter than our previous 20 years here, but we still had some good sales," said Richard Selby of London’s Redfern Gallery. For instance, Paul Emsley’s White Rhino, 2008, a print of a chalk portrait priced at £1,000 ($1,600), in an edition of 75, found buyers.

"London Original Print Fair" originally appeared in the July/August 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's July/August 2009 Table of Contents.