The last field guide was about how to think about prints as a starting point for collecting. I talked about how prints matter because they are one of the few corners of the market you can track value with some clarity, but a framework is only useful if you can put it into practice.
So here are five prints I’d buy right now, each one chosen using the lens I shared last time: the artist’s trajectory, the structure of the release, the publisher behind it, market data, and of course whether the work itself actually earns a place in your life. There are a lot of terms in here too, from print processes to auction data, so I also dropped in a glossary at the end.
This was such a fun curation because it really played with both sides of my brain - what art I loved balanced with the hard facts of market data.
Five different artists, five different stories, and five different ways to think about investing in art. The first one is free, and the last four are for paid subscribers.
Let’s go.
Shirin Neshat — Fervor, 2000
Avant Arte · €500 (~$651) Unframed · Time-Limited Edition dropping April 28 · 9”x16.5”
With everything unfolding in Iran, this release hit me differently. I just finished The Lion Women of Tehran, and even that only reminded me how much I cannot fully understand from a distance — how much is lived, carried, and survived inside ordinary lives experiencing extraordinary circumstances.
What I do know is that Shirin Neshat has spent decades making work around exile, gender, repression, and the psychic cost of power, and she continues to insist on art as a place where those histories can still be seen. Iran is in another period of severe repression amid wider conflict, which makes her work feel less like a market story than a human one.
I promised numbers, so here are hers: In November 2022, Phillips London hammered a single gelatin silver Fervor print, edition of 10, for $41,900. A year later, Sotheby’s New York sold a three-part Fervor for $21,590, 44% above the high estimate. On April 28, Avant Arte releases the same image at $651 (€500).
The release also lands at a moment when her career has unusual institutional force behind it. PAC Milan staged a major survey last year, the Parrish Art Museum gave her her first New York-area solo museum show in twenty years, and her new film trilogy Do U Dare! opens at the Venice Biennale in May.
Below are four more incredible artists, stories, and prints available for sale.
