Photo turned into painting

[chrisga]

So, we were walking around Olympia Horse Show yesterday looking at the various trade stands and were drawn to a painting of a dog which looked uncannily like ours.

Anyway, later we went back to have another look and I'm pretty certain the painting was of our dog, and it is a direct copy of a photo I took. This particular photo is available for sale on stock sites. I don't think the artist has done anything wrong as long as they have purchased the photo through a stock site, but I guess it might be possible to find it in a search engine with a watermark over it.

I'm actually quite flattered that someone would paint it, and my wife was in tears when she realised there was a painting of our dog prominently displayed on an art stand at Olympia, but the tears may have been more because we couldn't afford to even buy one of the prints!

Cost of photo I could have got from stock site, potentially as low as $0.30. Value of original painting + prints if all limited run sold at asking price = £82k!!!!!!!!! Appreciate some of that presumably goes to the gallery's but that's not a bad return. Think I need to go to evening art school.

[singlecoil]

You can ask what you like for a painting, but whether you get it or not is another matter.

Presumably the idea of asking silly money for the original was to bump up the perceived value of the prints.

By the way, my wife paints in pastels, she will do a picture of your dog from a photo for a few hundred depending on the size (of the painting, not the dog )

[chrisga]

singlecoil said:

You can ask what you like for a painting, but whether you get it or not is another matter.

Presumably the idea of asking silly money for the original was to bump up the perceived value of the prints.

By the way, my wife paints in pastels, she will do a picture of your dog from a photo for a few hundred depending on the size (of the painting, not the dog )

Agreed, but according to the gallery guy we chatted to, the original sold for £6k. The prints are an apparently limited run of 250 at £220 for non-framed, with 25 larger "artist proof canvas print" at £850 for non-framed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the skill of the artist and if I wanted a painting of our dog from one of my photos a few hundred pounds seems reasonable for their skill plus time and effort. Just not sure the artist added £82k worth of value to my $0.30 photo that's all.

[singlecoil]

chrisga said:

singlecoil said:

You can ask what you like for a painting, but whether you get it or not is another matter.

Presumably the idea of asking silly money for the original was to bump up the perceived value of the prints.

By the way, my wife paints in pastels, she will do a picture of your dog from a photo for a few hundred depending on the size (of the painting, not the dog )

Agreed, but according to the gallery guy we chatted to, the original sold for £6k. The prints are an apparently limited run of 250 at £220 for non-framed, with 25 larger "artist proof canvas print" at £850 for non-framed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the skill of the artist and if I wanted a painting of our dog from one of my photos a few hundred pounds seems reasonable for their skill plus time and effort. Just not sure the artist added £82k worth of value to my $0.30 photo that's all.

Maybe what he claimed is true and maybe it isn't. If it's a well known artist it could be true but otherwise I'd want to actually see that sale take place and the money change hands before I believed it (probably not even then).

Gallery owner would have got it for about half the sale price at the most.

[Simpo Two]

Did the 30c fee include commercial use (ie for profit), and if so, does the fact the painter painted over it then render it a new work? One for the copyright lawyers.