Fine Art Publishing - How Does It Work?

My Art Agency is a management agency for artists, meaning we help artists elevate their career by helping them with many facets of the business, including publishing.

So, what is fine art publishing?

Essentially, it is the scanning, proofing and production of art.  Long gone are the days when an artist would create a piece that could only be sold once. Nowadays, it is normal for artist’s to make prints, enabling a piece of art to reach more art buyers [especially for those that couldn't necessarily afford the original], and also for the artist to make more revenue on one piece of work. 

‘Prints’ refer to any sort of reproduction of a piece of artwork, and the most common style of print used to make copies of original artwork is ‘giclee’ print. The process can be very time consuming and costly to an artist trying to manage it independently, which is where My Art Agency and our years of experience working with Fine Art Publishers comes in! 

So, how does an original become a print? 

Firstly, the original goes through a fine art high resolution scanner to produce the best quality scan of the original artwork. Then the image is proofed, and retouched if necessary. The retouching can be done on different textures and style of art papers, and if the original artwork has embellishments on it, such as resins, metallic leafing, diamond dust, sand, crystals, etc, these will need to be added by a specialist. Once the image/scan is looking the best it can possibly be, it is then time to assess the print for its ability to sell.

Does the piece work as a print? Does the print need to be sold as a set? What size does the print need to be? Will you print Artist Proofs? What edition size and format should it be? Will you print on demand? All of these things need to be carefully considered before going ahead.

Once you have your prints ready, you then need to consider how to price them. Pricing is another part of the process that requires careful consideration, experience and knowledge. Knowing the market is key when trying to determine the RRP of your prints, and again, this is something that My Art Agency oversees for our artists.

If you would like more information about artist management, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team.