Wow, this story is amazing. I was just over at NSFGE reading the thread and the great work by Rich and Rich and it's truly unbeliveable. I do have a question or comment. When restorers are working with window cards, it is my understanding that they remove the top layer of the paper and then reback it with acid free card stock. Wouldn't it be possible to do that with one of the S2art posters. They are on heavy stock and measure a full 27x41 unlike most repros that are 27x40. So, at that point that layer could be mounted onto the rice paper and canvas just like the digital prints were done for the fakes. Is that even a possible scenario. Thought maybe Dario or another linenbacker on the group could say.
Sue www.hollywoodposterframes.com Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2009 10:23:22 -0700 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: [MOPO] Profiles in History To: [email protected] Paul S2Art lithos are on a heavy paper more like lobby cards and half sheets they also do an offset repro, but that poster is smaller in size 24x36 I believe they make the different sizes to keep their high-quality product in demand (if you want full size, you have to order their lithos) I just spoke to Ed Poole, he told me what I needed to know - that S2's images for the poster come from the AFI and that art.com also gets their images from AFI so what the scenario looks like to me is that AFI sourced the poster from a transparency of Todd's poster from when it was auctioned, or from Ron Borst's poster. They then reset the handwritten type of the original poster with mechanically reset type (or more likely, digital type) and cleaned up the other type by hand (Dracula, Tod Browning, Universal and the script type directly under the image) or totally redrew that type as well, or even had custom fonts designed these are common practices in printing. The object is to make it neat and clean, much like airbrushing a Playboy model, so that when it is printed a buyer cannot walk up to the poster and say "that hand written type sure looks sloppy". It's like the layboy model, they're afraid you may see that one stretch mark she has on her thigh, so they airbrush it & clean it up. this of course means that for good detective work, we're going to have to look at other posters aside from Dracula that are sold by S2 and Art.com to determine how much type editing the AFI did to the entire line of S2art & art.com movie poster editions. What did they do to the Mummy, and King Kong?? Casablanca? The Flash Gordon posters?? If they reset the type on one title, they likely cleaned up as many posters as they felt was necessary to get the product to market because they make money & want to maximize their take by making the posters more salable by this technique Concerning who should be authenticating posters. I have admiration for Poster Mountain's ability as restorers. However, the key to why they have the reputation they have in poster restoration is that they are artists and the quality of their restoration is not measured by how they put the poster on a sheet of masa because it is likely that most restorers are equal in masa mounting. But they are not equal as artists. Being a great artist may not qualify you as an authenticator because artistry and forensics are not the same also, John Davis did not get an unmounted poster. The poster was previously linenbacked by Diane Jeffrey Diane says the paper didn't feel right - BEFORE MOUNTING By the time John has seen the poster it has been soaked in a solution bath. It has been touched up. Missing paper has been expertly replaced. Even if he unmounted the poster, it no longer has it's original characteristics, and therein lay the rub. The reason I'm going to see Jack at S2 is to examine the paper again. If I was Profiles I may want to order the full size Art.com print so that the paper could be sensed and to look for other anomalies within the image, but what is also important is for someone to explain what the sources of the image are. Whose poster was used to get the image that is now used by the AFI. This is a major question that needs to be answered in order to help get a true answer Rich At 05:38 AM 9/26/2009, Paul Gerrard wrote: Rich, This is what I was trying to point out on NSFGE. Looks to me that art.com is simply a retail outlet sourcing from various suppliers, and S2 the most probable manufacturer/supplier of their limited edition lithos at least. Don't know about the other smaller art.com repro that Rich E mainly used for his comparisons. The selection of limited edition poster images and sizes they sell is very similar, even down to an Alien HS!! Might be a complete red herring of course, as I've never seen an S2 litho in person, and definitely not accusing S2 of any nefarious deeds, but could someone have doctored one of their posters? Diane mentioned the unusual paper and some strange backing/residue, which made me wonder whether the thickness had been altered or disguised. On NSFGE you said quality of printing might actually be better than the original, but surely people would be looking for poor/fuzzy quality when authenticating, if not comparing directly against another genuine copy. You didn't seem to think it could be one of their posters tho - so maybe they just started from the same base image as the Profiles one. Whatever the case, since you're in the neighbourhood, it certainly seems a good idea of yours to check whether it is the same image - if only to eliminate it from our enquiries, as they might say in a bad cop movie. Will be interesting to see your report. Would love an excuse to go to Vegas, but unfortunately it's a bit of a long trek for me... Paul www.movieposterstudio.com In a message dated 26/09/2009 04:55:24 GMT Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: Also, I'll be going down to S2Art gallery to see Jack Solomon Tuesday and examine a S2Art Stone Litho reprint of the poster which also is the same image as the Profiles copy. I wonder if art.com sourced their poster from S2 ?? 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