sourcing art content

where to find content for art website?

[barrycondon]

Hi Guys,

Hope you are doing well today?

Can you please advise and direct me, as to where I could legally source jpegs/gifs/whatever of famous artist's work.

I am researching a project for a potential customer who wants to sell artwork online.

I was thinking, there must some sites out there which sell relevant content?

Thanks in Advance and may the Lord Jesus Bless you.

Barry

[hunderdown]

I don't understand what your customer wants to do. Does your customer want to deal directly with living artists, and offer reproductions of their work online? Or does he/she want to join the affiliate programs of companies that are already selling art online?

[Syzygy]

There are indeed many sites out there legally using images of works of art. On the basis that you are talking about images of museum quality works, you must either...

a) If you seek images of privately owned works, approach the owner or the owner's estate and seek permission to use an image of a work of art. Anticipate that they will already have images available. This will likely cost money, especially as you (your client) are seeking to operate a commercial site.

Or;

b) Approach the museum, gallery or auction house displaying the art that you want an image of. Generally they will have a permissions/copyright person to deal with enquiries of this nature (trying to find them is not always going to be easy, especially with the larger institutions!). Anticipate that they will already have images available. This will likely cost money, especially as you (your client) are seeking to operate a commercial site.

Speaking from experience I can tell you that even art & antiques magazines/reviews (the Press) have to pay for the use of some images.

In the main though, auction houses will not charge if you are highlighting art that is included in a forthcoming auction and you are helping spread awareness of this by carrying a write-up or preview (and it helps if you're targeting the type clientele they desire...).

Syzygy

[Beagle]

I'm confused, too. If it's an affiliate program, the business the person is affiliated should provide graphics of the artwork to display in their ads.

If they want to directly sell reproductions of artworks themselves, they could certainly find people online to buy them from, and then resell them. I'd think most wholesalers would have graphics of their available products to pass along for display purposes, although I can't say that for sure.

The deal with long-dead artists is that one of their actual paintings may be in "the public domain," but when someone photographs that painting for use somewhere else, the photographer (or sometimes the museum if they commissioned the photography) owns the copyright for that photo. Sometimes a photographer will pass a photo on to one of the websites that allow copyright-free downloads, but you'd have to check the terms of service to see what purposes those photos can be used for legally. Most sites offering copyright-free downloads require a fee or a membership.

Something else to consider is that different photographs/reproductions of the same work of art can look very different from each other. If someone displayed one photograph of the artwork as a graphic on their website, then actually sent a customer a reproduction made from another source, it could be considered misleading.

[barrycondon]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your advice and comments,
Its all very confusing to me too as I have never come across this type of job.

The Goal of the site is to produce 'original copies' of art using real artists that my potential customer has sourced.

It seems to be transparent in that they only want to use art work that is legally available to the public.
I suppose there are people out there who would like to buy a replica of a famous painting and for obvios reasons can't buy the original.

If I were to be involved in the project, I would have to source jpegs of these images under categories such as 'landscape' 'van gogh' 'contempory' etc etc

I would think that gathering these images could be time consuming and it would be great if there was a site out there who actually sells graphics of this sort

Anyway, I hope it is now clearer,

Thanks
BArry

[Leosghost]

I have a friend who makes this stuff in China ( very very high grade ) he isn't the only one tho ..( 'bout 300 big workshops that I know of ...he showed me around ..most of them know each other )..around 50 can, and do do high grade repro's of "old masters" ..) most of the "portraits" that you have to wait 3 weeks for are actually done in China from photos and signed with the name of your choice ..

BTW (..usually far more than one artist works on each picture ..except on portraits where sometimes one will do all the face while another does the brides robe or whatever )..

The "artist" that you gave the order too ..then revarnishes in their "studio" in the states or wherever to add the authentic "smell" of turps ...

Same system is used to provide still lifes in photorealism at knockdown prices ..airbrush originals .tourist scenes , pastels ..whatever ...

The Chinese artists get paid pretty good for China ..but there are sometimes as many as 200 artists in one building ..some just paint sunsets ..some just do bunnies etc ..mostly in acrylics ( dry quicker ..can be sold as "oils" )..due to the impasto effects obtainable ..

There are already loads of websites ..

Nothing new ..

They all have online catalogues of what they have already done ...can't see how your guy can't supply the images .."if" he is in direct contact with the chinese studios...

[hunderdown]

If your customer is offering replicas of classic paintings, I think it would be far less cumbersome, and probably less expensive, for them to be photographed by whoever is producing them than for you to try to clear permissions.

To try to find public domain photos of classic paintings, you would need to search one by one for each painting, and then carefully check the status of any images that come up. Most if not all would probably require permission and a payment because someone owns the photo.

[Beagle]

I'd agree with hunderdown. Besides, if I were someone buying one of the replicas, that's what I'd want to see a picture of--not what it's "supposed" to look like. I'd want to get an idea of the quality of the replica.