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Inside the Business of Prints, Multiples and Editions

Editions are drawing younger collectors, new gallery and fair investment and fresh attention from artists—now galleries, publishers and workshops are testing how far the model can stretch.

Prints and editions have proven in recent years that an artistic medium can grow significantly without necessarily being well understood by the broader public. Pace Prints announced in February that it will open an 11,700-square-foot facility in L.A. this fall, strengthening the wave of activity in the prints-and-editions collecting category. Almine Rech introduced an editions arm and online sales platform in 2020; David Zwirner launched Utopia Editions in 2021; and Hauser & Wirth opened a dedicated editions space on West 18th Street in 2023, to name just a few. A handful of new fairs focusing on prints and editions have also premiered during this boom, including the Paris Print Fair in 2022, the Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair in 2024 and the inaugural Signatures Art Fair opening in Paris this November. The momentum is reflected in sales data, too; ArtTactic’s latest Prints and Multiples report found that the category has grown its share in the auction market by 52 percent between 2015 and 2025.

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Despite this increasing appetite, however, the fundamentals of the editions business remain opaque compared to that of, say, paintings. Are artists simply reproducing pre-existing works for a larger audience at lower price points? Who funds production? Who actually does the printing? For many art enthusiasts, these and other essential questions still hover around the category. To demystify this fast-growing corner of the market, Observer spoke with more than a dozen galleries, publishers and artists in New York and Los Angeles. Their insights clarify not only how the editions market operates but also the dynamics on which its further expansion depends.

The economics of editions

Most print and editions businesses follow one of two models: workshops that operate their own galleries or galleries that double as publishers by funding production elsewhere. The former group includes printmaking workshops with exhibition programs, such as Gemini G.E.L. and Cirrus, as well as gallery-founded print ventures like Pace Prints, which shares a name with the recently downsized mega-gallery despite operating independently for decades.

In the publishing model, by contrast, galleries finance and organize the logistics of connecting artists with outside workshops. Nicodim gallery, which launched its Fine Art Editions branch in 2021, has worked with Lapis Press; White Cube has partnered with Du-Good Press and Almine Rech with Brand X. By forgoing an in-house workshop, a pure publisher sacrifices control but gains versatility, offering artists a residency-like experience with whichever offsite printer........

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