Frederick Moulder is a print dealer that the Evening Standard’s This Is London blog claims gave away his commission on the sale of a £3 million Picasso print. In addition, Mr. Moulder is cited as donating works to clients on the condition that they donate the same amount to charity in turn.

“I have a nice house which I bought 30 years ago and a 15-year-old VW Golf, which does me fine. I am able to use what money I earn to make some of the changes in the world I want to see.”

Money isn’t everything, says art dealer who gave $3m sale profit to charity (This Is London)

Deborah Ripley reports on the prints action at Art Basel Miami:

The main event of Miami art week is, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach at the Miami Beach Convention Center, Dec. 4-7, 2008. Among the handful of print dealers still exhibiting at the fair was Carolina Nitsch, who admitted she was worried about the art market. By Saturday, she was relieved to report that sales were very good. “Strong work will always stand out,” she declared, after selling Bruce Nauman’s Double Poke, a neon sculpture originally issued as a multiple to benefit the New Museum, for an impressive $250,000. She also sold a large etching by Richard Dupont for $4,500, and a suite of Carolee Schneemann’s challenging performance photos from the 1970s, which famously show the naked artist pulling various objects from her vagina. The buyer of this last was a museum.

The booth of Two Palms Press was crowded with viewers anxious to get a gander at Richard Prince’s new naughty portfolio of 19 print collages, entitled “Dead or Alive” and debuting at $200,000 for an edition of six. Prince’s mélange of images of de Kooning’s “Women,” clipped from museum catalogues and grafted onto pulp-magazine pinups, enables viewers, according to the press release, to finally experience “unrepressed de Kooning.” Thanks to the stiff price, sales were repressed as well — at least so far.

Miami Print Report 2008 (Artnet)

Artnet Reports on the Print Market

Deborah Ripley has this smart, detailed report on the recent print sales in New York:

The final tallies from both houses showed that this new market has shifted radically from previous years: Christie’s sale on Oct. 28-29, 2008, totaled $8,165,663, roughly 62 percent of the value of all the lots in the sale, and a sell-through rate of 61 percent. Sotheby’s did a little worse on Oct 30-31, 2008, totaling $8,325,317, about 52 percent of the value of its sale, and a sell-through rate of 58 percent.

Overall, many works saw price corrections, especially those by artists whose prints had seen stupendous increases in value over the past few years. The biggest loser was Andy Warhol, whose decline was confirmation of a trend that Pop dealers had noticed over the past year. Warhol prices dropped at least 30 percent overall, and in some cases more.

But don’t cry for Andy, there’s still life left in his massive market:

The good news is that Sotheby’s sold one of Warhol’s “Marilyn” portfolios of ten multicolored silkscreens for just over $1 million ($1,022,500). This is the third highest price ever achieved for a Warhol price at auction, proving that “Marilyn” is still a big draw for collectors.

Ripley gives a detailed tour of the world of prints that’s well worth reading in depth. But the conclusion is summed up here:

Phillips contemporary print chief Cary Leibowitz predicted that the day of the phone-book-sized catalogue has passed. “Right now there are too many works, and not enough bidders,” he said. “Next season’s offerings will be substantially smaller.”

The New Print Paradigm (Artnet)