Art Authority Blog

Welcome Jamie Wyeth!

By Art Authority March 25, 2019 ,

 

As a user of our award-winning Art Authority app line, or a customer of our 1000Museums brand of top-quality reproductions (available through museum gift shops and 1000Museums.com), you’re probably familiar with those parts of Art Authority LLC. Until today, you may have been unfamiliar with the third part of our business: Fine Art Custom Printing.

FACP, spearheaded by digital printmaking pioneer R. Mac Holbert, is our brand for fine art printing services for artists and photographers. Many FACP clients are renowned artists in their own right, but rely on Mac to hone their vision into the best prints possible.

Today we are proud to announce that we have worked with celebrated contemporary realist painter and third-generation artist Jamie Wyeth to make his works directly available through our FACP program and the new web site FocusOnJamieWyeth.com. Mr. Wyeth played an integral role in designing and developing his FACP offerings, from choosing and proofing the initial set of works available to the selection of the special high-quality paper to be used.

Jamie Wyeth, Dog under Lilacs in a Downpour. 2018. ©Jamie Wyeth, 2019

We look forward to additional work with Mr. Wyeth and with other artists of his renown. So expect to hear a lot more about Art Authority Fine Art Custom Printing in the near future!

Our long, strange, 10-year trip

By Art Authority July 9, 2018 , , ,

 

Ten years ago, on July 10 2008, Apple rolled out the App Store. It sure has been a long, strange trip for us here at Art Authority LLC since then.

In 2008 we were Open Door Networks, founded in 1995 as a dial-up internet provider, and known mainly for developing Macintosh network utilities like the DoorStop Personal Firewall.

The iPhone of course changed everything. When introduced the year before, Apple didn’t allow developers to provide software for it, but they quickly saw the error of their ways and the rest is most certainly history. We couldn’t resist the opportunity to develop iPhone apps, and our iEnvision Web-image browser app was available on day one in the “iTunes App Store” ten years ago.

iEnvision included “bookmarks” to five categories of image sites that we thought displayed particularly well on the iPhone: comics, space photos, newspaper front pages, children’s books and… art! It was a great start for us, and within a month, we broke out the individual built-in categories from iEnvision into individual apps, which we called “Envi apps.” There was “Comic Envi,” “Space Envi”, “News Envi”, “Kid Book Envi” and… “Art Envi.” Many other Envi’s soon followed.

The App Store was a huge success, as was Art Envi in particular. When Apple announced the iPad in early 2010, it was a no-brainer what we were going to implement on Apple’s next groundbreaking device: art, art, art. Art Authority in particular. Art Authority for iPad took Art Envi to the next level, with dozens of times the number of artists and the amount of art, many more ways to search and access the art, and a professionally-designed virtual museum interface. The result: “an experience unlike any other” (the NY Times), which has often sold as the #1 reference app in the App Store. We are proud to have, literally and figuratively, changed art history with our art apps.

Our transition from Macintosh network experts to Art Authority was just getting started. The Art Authority app’s widespread acclaim was noticed by a number of real art authorities, including the Getty Museum’s Stanley Smith and digital printing guru R. Mac Holbert. In early 2016 we got together with Stanley, Mac and other art authorities to form Art Authority LLC. The company had become the app.

Our trip didn’t stop there. E-commerce company Project A had long been associated with Open Door’s efforts, and with their e-commerce know-how, Stanley and Mac’s printing expertise and the app’s access to 100,000+ works of art, we had everything we needed to move Art Authority beyond the app world into selling museum-quality reproductions. Many companies had gone from physical goods to electronic; we went from electronic to physical goods.

The final piece of the puzzle (so far) fell into place when we acquired the assets of art e-commerce pioneer 1000Museums. 1000Museums.com remains the principal site for selling our (physical) wares, and the museum relationships that the site has helped nurture look to be the next big step in what has certainly been a very long, strange 10-year trip. All started by Steve Jobs, the iPhone, and the App Store.

Happy Anniversary!

Focusing on the Genius of Picasso

By Art Authority April 4, 2018 , ,

 

Next up in our Focus series: FocusOnPicasso.com, a site designed to help art lovers explore and obtain reproductions from the different periods and styles of the artist often called the most influential of the 20th century. The site opening is timed to link with the start of the new National Geographic Channel’s “Genius” series, entitled simply “Picasso.” FocusOnPicasso.com lets TV watchers and art lovers everywhere view, learn about and purchase archival reproductions of key works from each of Picasso’s highly varied creative periods.

As with other Art Authority Focus sites, FocusOnPicasso.com provides a succinct overview of major aspects of the subject and makes available museum-approved archival prints of key works of art involved. In addition to exploring by period, users can also browse through Picasso’s works by subject matter as well.

Portions of purchases from Focus sites go back directly to the institutions involved. All Focus sites feature our 1000Museums brand, known for the latest in print-on-demand technology, top-quality archival reproductions, and a broad set of museum and cultural institution relationships. The full 1000Museums print-on-demand line is available at 1000Museums.com.

Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series: the whole story

By Art Authority January 30, 2018 , ,

 

In 1941, at the high point of the Great African-American Migration, Jacob Lawrence created and captioned a sequence of 60 small paintings visually and poignantly portraying that migration. Viewed in its entirety, the series creates a narrative, in pictures and words, which tells the story of that exodus.

Lawrence’s Migration Series was quickly recognized, not just as a representation, but as an essential piece of the ongoing movement. Not just documentation of history, but part of history. Both the Museum of Modern Art and the Phillips Collection competed to purchase the works, which were ultimately split between the two museums, with odd-numbered panels going to the Phillips and even-numbered to MoMA. The split broadened access but made it just about impossible to “read” the whole “story” in order, let alone in its entirety.

Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series, Panel no. 1: During World War I there was a great migration north by southern African Americans, 1940-41. Phillips Collection © 2016 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

On rare occasions, all 60 panels have been exhibited together, most recently in Seattle. But we’ve been unaware of any place in cyberspace where you could acquire the whole story and hang it on your wall. Until now. Art Authority is proud to announce that, as part of Black History Month, we have worked with the Phillips, MoMA and the Lawrence Foundation to make available 1000Museums-brand archival prints of all 60 panels.

We’re so proud that we’ve taken things beyond just these foundational panels and created an entire web site devoted to celebrating related works of art by a number of major African-American artists. The site, FocusOnAfricanAmericanArtists.com adds context to Lawrence’s panels not just through other important works by him, but also by others who came both before and after. Works by early artists Henry Ossawa Tanner and Horace Pippin, later artists Romare Bearden and Faith Ringgold, and many more. All available through the museum-approved quality of 1000Museums archival reproductions.

Another small piece of an ongoing story.

Focusing on Latin America and L.A.

By Art Authority September 21, 2017 , ,

 

In concert with the opening of the multi-site art event “Pacific Standard Time:LA/LA,” through our 1000Museums brand, we are proud to announced “Focus on Latin American Masters,” a site devoted to major Latin American artists of the 20th century. The site at FocusOnLatinAmericanMasters.com supplements the “far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles” that is PST:LA/LA.

As with the various other 1000Museums “Focus On” sites, FocusOnLatinAmericanMasters.com makes available a unique curated collection of archival reproductions of works by major artists and institutions, in this case Latin American Masters of the 20th century including Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco. As with other “Focus On” sites, Art Authority has worked directly with the institutions involved, in particular the San Diego Museum of Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), both of which have shows as part of PST:LA/LA.

Frida Kahlo, Girl from Tehuacán, Lucha María or Sun and Moon, 1942, Coleccion Perez Simon, Mexico

“Focus on Latin American Masters” and all Art Authority’s Focus On sites feature their established 1000Museums brand, known for the latest in print-on-demand technology, top-quality archival reproductions, and broad set of museum and cultural institution relationships. Other “Focus On” sites include:

• Focus on Frank Lloyd Wright – FocusOnFLW.com
• Focus on Mark Rothko – FocusOnRothko.com
• Focus on Henri Matisse – FocusOnMatisse.com
• Focus on Library of Congress – FocusOnLibraryOfCongress.com

Focusing on Rothko and Matisse

By Art Authority August 8, 2017 , ,

 

Fresh on the heels of “Focus on Frank Lloyd Wright” we are pleased to announce “Focus on Mark Rothko” and “Focus on Henri Matisse.”

As we hinted at when we launched our Frank Lloyd Wright focus site, we’ve been working with top names in the art world to bring focus to their collections and help you view and purchase archival reproductions from those collections in new ways.

Mark Rothko pioneered color field art, and “Focus on Rothko” at FocusOnRothko.com lets you browse and select his works by color. Or more traditionally by title or time period. We’re also pleased to be working with our neighbor the Portland Art Museum to support the new Rothko wing they are building to honor one of Oregon’s native sons.

Mark Rothko, Ochre and Red on Red, 1954 (oil on canvas, 92 5/8 x 63 3/4 in.) The Phillips Collection, Washington DC, acquired 1964. © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Albert Barnes was one of the earliest backers of Henri Matisse’s work, and we are proud the Barnes Foundation supported “Focus on Matisse” at FocusOnMatisse.com by making available a number of rarely seen works by the leading Fauvist (check out the three “Three Sisters” works in particular). You can browse and select Matisse works by style, including cutouts, portraits, still life and line drawings.

Henry Matisse, Codomas, plate XI from the illustrated book “Jazz, 1947” (pochoir, 16 5/8 x 25 5/8 in.) Indiana University Art Museum, 65.23.11. © 2013 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Speaking of support, purchases from Focus On sites support both those who created these classic artworks and those who care for them. Portions of every purchase go to the artists’ estates and the works’ owners. So you can give back and enjoy great art at the same time. That’s certainly what we do here. And of course all prints from Focus On sites are hand crafted here in Ashland, Oregon using the same museum-quality materials and processes you’re used to with the 1000Museums brand.

There’s much more to come too. We’re particularly excited about our soon-to-be-announced work with the Library of Congress and with a similar institution “across the pond.” So definitely stay tuned.

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