Original Paintings vs Prints: What's the Difference?

The question comes up often, and it deserves a direct answer. A print is a mechanical reproduction of an image — made in multiples, sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands. An original painting is the object itself: the canvas, the paint, the physical record of every decision the artist made.

When you buy a print, you own a copy of an image. When you buy an original, you own the image — the one that exists nowhere else in the world. There is no second copy. There is no original somewhere else. The painting you hold is the painting.

This distinction has real consequences. Originals can appreciate in value over time; prints generally do not. Originals carry provenance — a documented history of ownership that can be traced back to the artist. Prints have editions and edition numbers, but no singular identity.

There is also a material difference most people overlook: texture. A painting carries the physical marks of its making — brushstrokes, impasto, the slight topography of dried paint. A print, however high-resolution, is flat. It shows you what the artist did; it cannot show you how they did it.

The question of whether to buy an original or a print is ultimately a question of what you want to own. If you want to live with the record of a human act — the actual surface a painter touched — you want an original. If you want a beautiful image at a lower cost, a print may serve you well.

I only make originals. Each painting I complete is singular — there will never be a licensed print edition, a reproduction sold alongside it, or a duplicate. The buyer of each piece holds the only one. That is the commitment I make, and the commitment I ask of the collector in return.