Quote Originally Posted by Bruce Whitehead View Post
I have bought originals in the past, only to have the artist do a print run after the fact... I just feel that once there is a print run, the work is no longer an original.
By selling prints, the artist is doing you both a favor - he is making more money off of the hard work that he put into the original, and he is popularizing the image, making your original much, much more valuable.

Artists, unless they're really popular and well-known (and even most of *those* aren't before they die), tend to make squat for their work in general - and that's not even counting the time it took practicing to get good enough to make a decent piece of work like what the OP posted. "Steering away from prints" may be a luxury you can afford, but if everyone did that, artists would have to charge an arm and a leg for their work, further limiting the numbers of people who can and will afford (and display) their work. Be an art snob if you must, but there's scarcely a celebrated piece out there that doesn't have prints made - are you saying the Mona Lisa isn't an original piece? I mean... really.