How to read an edition number

Under every picture on this site is a small line: Artist's edition · M no. 102 of 150. It is the most important fact about a print, and the easiest to overlook.

Limited and open editions

An open edition can be printed without end. A limited edition is fixed in advance: a set number of prints of one picture, at one size, and never more. When the last number is sold, that edition is closed for good.

Every print sold here belongs to a limited edition.

What the numbers mean

"No. 102 of 150" says two things. The whole edition is 150 prints — there will never be a 151st at that size. And the print in front of you is the 102nd to be issued.

Numbers are issued in order. They are reserved at the moment you begin checkout, so two people can never be sold the same number, and a number that has been sold is never issued again.

Why some editions start at 102

Most new projects would start every edition at no. 1. This one does not, because the artist already sold these pictures once. In the 2000s he kept a typed ledger of every print sold, edition by edition, and our note on the ledger describes it.

The numbering here continues that ledger rather than replacing it. The artist printed at two sizes, which correspond to our M and XL sheets, so those two sizes pick up exactly where his count stopped. Eight pictures — among them Parasol, The Banana Flower and Weight and Bloom — sold far more than the rest, which is why their next number is 102 at M and 62 at XL, rather than 1.

The S and L sheets did not exist in his practice, so they are new editions of 50 that begin at no. 1.

Signature and certificate

Every print comes with a bilingual, numbered certificate of authenticity. The signature is optional: the artist can sign the print by hand for ¥4,000, which adds about a week. An unsigned print carries no facsimile signature — it is simply unsigned, and certificated all the same.

Before you choose

A lower number is not a better print — every number in an edition is identical. What a number records is a moment: where in the life of a picture your copy arrived. The questions page covers sizes, papers and shipping, and the collection shows the next number available for every work.