Friday, November 17, 2006

Kinuko Craft

Another great art book is on press, Kinuko Craft: Drawings and Paintings. Kinuko is, hands down, one of best in the business. The book displays covers, opera posters, fairy tales, and editorial work, with some of Kinuko's thoughts interspersed throughout. She is typically a very private person -- preferring to let the work speak for itself -- so this is a rare opportunity to hear her speak out a little. There are a number of sketches included, which I always enjoy seeing. I'm excited to see that there are a number of Tor covers displayed. It's very gratifying to see that the artists are proud of their work for us. The book will be out from Imaginosis in January.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

that looks like a nice one -

here's a question for you - do artists usually retain ownership of the artwork they create for book covers like this? i wonder how the copyright issues work.

Irene Gallo said...

Hi Francis,

The artists usually retain both the copyright and the actual paintings. We buy those rights that we feel we need - the more rights we want, the more we pay.

For a book cover, we typically buy fairly limited rights. We don't care if artists want to make calendars, trading cards, prints, computer wall papers, etc. out of the cover art. But, if someone is working on, say, a corporate identity, then they would do a complete rights buy-out. Because the artist can no longer earn money off that image, they can charge a lot more for that. A friend of mine, Mark Summers, did the stagecoach logo for the bank Wells Fargo. They are a client that probably did not want their logo used in any other context, so it's likely that they bought all the rights to that image.

As for the actual painting...there aren't many clients that buy the actual painting but a few do. I know that Time Magazine and the US Postal service does. If anyone buys the painting, say at this auction, that does _not_ transfer the copyright to the buyer. They only own the physical object, not it's usage.

Anonymous said...

Cool thanks! I appreciate the detailed info, very informative.