Art Authority Blog
Another Major Art Acquisition
In July of 2016, we here at Art Authority announced our first major art acquisition, which was 1000Museums worth of art. Our success with that company has led to another similar acquisition.
1000Museums specializes in creating the highest quality archival reproductions for museum stores, as well as for art lovers worldwide. (It is also the basis of the “1000Museums Gift Shop” in the app line.) Over the past 6+ years, we have greatly expanded the set of museums we support, but our product line has remained solely focused on printed items.
We are excited to announce that, effective immediately, Art Authority LLC is now in joint ownership with the leading provider of all types of products for museum stores, Museum Store Products, Inc. The two will still operate as separate sister companies, but with the same owners, same mission to help museums thrive, and same commitment to quality and USA manufacturing (MSP is in New Jersey, Art Authority in Oregon). So now we are not just the leading manufacturer of print products for museum stores, but of all products for museum stores!
Art Authority for iPad ten-year anniversary
With the world, and our, attentions turned elsewhere, we missed the ten-year anniversary of Apple’s shipping the iPad, and our shipping Art Authority for iPad with it. Just as with the iPhone, we had an app in the App Store on day one.
Ten years later, Art Authority for iPad is still going strong. If anything, with art museums closed, it’s even more relevant today than it was 10 years ago.
Happy Holidays
In keeping with modern-day tradition, Art Authority and our 1000Museums brand of museum-approved archival prints would like to help you ring in the holidays with free apps and special pricing on our prints.
Our award-winning Art Authority for iPad and iPhone apps are FREE this weekend. So if you haven’t already, please go out and get them. You can then browse the collection of over 100,00 classic works of art from hundreds of museums worldwide.
And what do you do after visiting the museum(s)? Go through the museum gift shop, of course. The 1000Museums gift shop is built into the apps, or you can get to it directly at 1000Museums.com.
And did we mention everything at 1000Museums is 30-50% off this weekend? And shipping in the U.S. is free!
So what are waiting for? Happy Holidays!
Georgia O’Keeffe at New Britain
Art Authority, through our 1000Museums brand, is pleased and proud we were able to help out with a great show opening today (February 22) at the New Britain Museum of American Art. It’s called “The Beyond: Georgia O’Keeffe and Contemporary Art.”
NBMAA asked us to create a number of framed reproductions of this quintessentially American painter’s key works (along with prints and postcards for sale), and we were more than happy to do so. If you’re anywhere near Connecticut’s NBMAA, don’t miss this show!
(Just in case you couldn’t tell, these photos are of the reproductions in their gift shop, not the real thing!)
The show originated at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art before traveling to the North Carolina Museum of Art as well. We were privileged to work on the show at these too fine locations as well.
Be-Sure-You-Get-It-In-Time: Apps free this week
As part of our Be-Sure-You-Get-It-In-Time sale, the award-winning Art Authority for iPad and iPhone apps are completely free this week. We’re hoping all you last-minute Christmas shoppers will use the apps (or the 1000Museums.com web site) to take advantage of the last few days you can order our 1000Museums archival prints and get them in time for Christmas* at great sale prices (30% off through promotion code INTIME30).
So, if there’s anyone left on your gift list (and we’re betting there is), please download the apps (if you haven’t already), go to the built-in 1000Museums Gift Shop, and put in your orders. After that you can enjoy the apps for free throughout 2019 and beyond.
*See our holiday ordering deadlines page for details. Custom-framed prints should be ordered by Wednesday, December 12.
Celebrating giving back, part 1
As part of our ongoing 2-year anniversary celebration, the award-winning Art Authority for iPad and iPhone apps are now completely free through this weekend. Just another way we’re giving back to the art community. But free apps are just a very small part of on our giving back, so keep watching this space. Here’s a big hint for you:
Watch this space
Having just celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the App Store and the long, strange trip it started us on, we’re about to celebrate the 2-year anniversary of one of the biggest parts of that trip: our major acquisition of 1000 museums worth of art through 1000Museums.com.
So be sure to watch this space as that date, Sunday July 22, gets closer. You’ll be glad you did 🙂
Rembrandt van Rijn, The Night Watch, 1642, Rijksmuseum
Our long, strange, 10-year trip
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!
Best for Last: Art Authority apps free this weekend only
As part of our “Best for Last” sale, the award-winning Art Authority for iPad and iPhone apps are completely free this weekend only. We’re hoping all you last-minute Christmas shoppers will use the apps (or the 1000Museums.com web site) to take advantage of the LAST two days you can order our 1000Museums archival prints and get them in time for Christmas* at the BEST sales prices of the year (30% off through promotion code BESTFORLAST).
So, if there’s anyone left on your gift list (and we’re betting there is), please download the apps (if you haven’t already), go to the built-in 1000Museums Gift Shop, and put in your orders. After that you can enjoy the apps for free throughout 2018 and beyond.
*Sorry, but due to our custom processes, only unframed prints shipped in the US will make it in time for Christmas.
Visit 1000 museums this Sunday
Through our 1000Museums brand, Art Authority is proud to be a Charter Sponsor of Museum Store Sunday, which is tomorrow! MSS is the museum equivalent of Black Friday, and we’re kicking off our holiday campaign with some serious specials to highlight the day:
- The award-winning Art Authority apps for iPad and iPhone, with their own museum store through the new 1000Museums Gift Shop, will be only 99 cents through Apple’s App Store (normally $9.99 and $4.99 respectively)
- Every archival reproduction from every museum at 1000Museums.com will be 25% off, custom framing included
- The brand’s newly-introduced archival Note Card line will be 25% off at FocusOnFineArtGifts.com
- Newly-introduced items and specials will be available on 1000Museums partner sites, including those with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, US Library of Congress and National Gallery in London
So please go visit your local museum(s) and then please come back and visit a thousand more through our apps and the 1000Museums.com web sites.
