Kate Moss Marc Quinn

Contemporary artist Marc Quinn was born in London in 1964 and is known as one of the founding figures of the 1990s British contemporary art movement, alongside artist Damien Hirst. His work includes sculpture, installation and painting and explores “what it is to be human in the world today” through subjects that include the body, genetics, identity, environment, and the media. Quinn graduated from Cambridge University in 1984 and had his first solo show in 1988 at the Jay Jopling/Otis Gallery in London. Quinn was selected for the Sydney Biennale in 1992, and was represented in Young British Artists II at the Saatchi Gallery in 1993, and Time Machine at the British Museum in 1994. He participated in Thinking Print at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1996 and Sensation at the Royal Academy, London in 1997. He had a solo show at the South London Gallery, Camberwell, London in 1998. Self (1991, Saatchi Collection, London) is a self-portrait head made from his own frozen blood, and was first exhibited in 1991 at the Jay Jopling/Grob Gallery and then at the Saatchi Gallery in 1992. At the Tate Gallery in 1995, Quinn showed Emotional Detox: The Seven Deadly Sins, a group of seven lead casts of parts of his body which were made using the lost wax method. Quinn prefers to use his body as a primary source because it is free from the associations of implied relationships: 'the self is what one knows best and least at the same time ... casting the body gives one an opportunity to "see" the self' (conversation with Sean Rainbird, Tate Gallery, 1995).

Decorating with fine art prints — whether they’re figurative prints, abstract prints or another variety — has always been a practical way of bringing a space to life as well as bringing works by an artist you love into your home.

Pursued in the 1960s and ’70s, largely by Pop artists drawn to its associations with mass production, advertising, packaging and seriality, as well as those challenging the primacy of the Abstract Expressionist brushstroke, printmaking was embraced in the 1980s by painters and conceptual artists ranging from David Salle and Elizabeth Murray to Adrian Piper and Sherrie Levine.

Printmaking is the transfer of an image from one surface to another. An artist takes a material like stone, metal, wood or wax, carves, incises, draws or otherwise marks it with an image, inks or paints it and then transfers the image to a piece of paper or other material.

Fine art prints are frequently confused with their more commercial counterparts. After all, our closest connection to the printed image is through mass-produced newspapers, magazines and books, and many people don’t realize that even though prints are editions, they start with an original image created by an artist with the intent of reproducing it in a small batch. Fine art prints are created in strictly limited editions — 20 or 30 or maybe 50 — and are always based on an image created specifically to be made into an edition.

Many people think of revered Dutch artist Rembrandt as a painter but may not know that he was a printmaker as well. His prints have been preserved in time along with the work of other celebrated printmakers such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. These fine art prints are still highly sought after by collectors.

“It’s another tool in the artist’s toolbox, just like painting or sculpture or anything else that an artist uses in the service of mark making or expressing him- or herself,” says International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) vice president Betsy Senior, of New York’s Betsy Senior Fine Art, Inc.

Because artist’s editions tend to be more affordable and available than his or her unique works, they’re more accessible and can be a great opportunity to bring a variety of colors, textures and shapes into a space.

For tight corners, select small fine art prints as opposed to the oversized bold piece you’ll hang as a focal point in the dining area. But be careful not to choose something that is too big for your space. And feel free to lean into it if need be — not every work needs picture-hanging hooks. Leaning a larger fine art print against the wall behind a bookcase can add a stylish installation-type dynamic to your living room. (Read more about how to arrange wall art here.)

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