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Unoriginal masters
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July 22, 1998: 3:43 p.m. ET
Carlyle Collection brings faux masterworks to art-hungry masses
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - If you've ever wanted to buy a Van Gogh or Monet for a few hundred dollars, the Carlyle Collection can help you realize that dream, provided you're not too choosy about how authentic your masterpieces are.
The company is the brainchild of company chairman Philip Restaino, a former Bristol-Myers (BMY) marketing executive who is now planning to take the art market by storm with new renditions of old masters.
"Rousseau would be proud," Restaino said of the reproductions. "Each one is absolutely individually hand-painted by one of our talented artists. In fact, because of that no two are ever identical. This is not a manufacturing process. Computers aren't used to generate the art."
The Carlyle Collection has acquired rights to copy 82 masterpiece paintings, which are transposed onto canvases and then enhanced by real artists' brush strokes.
"We have artists working both on a full and part-time basis," Restaino noted. "We have access to 40 artists right now and we can easily ramp that up to 100 or more."
Jin Doh, one of Restaino's artists, has painted Rousseau's "The Dream" about 20 times.
"We try to follow the techniques or the brush strokes of the original artist and try to capture the spirit of the original painting," Doh said.
Artists painting for Carlyle often do so to supplement their incomes while they work on their own original art. They say the money is better than waiting tables, and as a bonus they get to study and learn firsthand from the masters.
Though some may find painted knockoffs of the masters to be less than tasteful, the company hopes its products will sell not only as replicas but as standalone pieces of decorative art.
Before photography, painted reproductions enjoyed long success in Europe and elsewhere, with many struggling painters supporting themselves by turning out copies of famous works for homes or art schools, where they were used for instruction.
The company has targeted the lucrative poster market -- which makes up 75 percent of the framed art industry -- for its reproductions
"This is an $8 billion domestic industry, $25 billion world-wide market," said Will Washburn of Southern Pacific Capital. "And it's completely fragmented. Not any company has a significant market share."
Experts like international art dealer Ira Shore say the collection will create its own niche.
"There's room for new folks. And you have to remember in the framed art business if you look at art as furniture, everyone needs to have it," said Shore, president of Fine Art Management. "If you're decorating a home and you buy a sofa, you're going to want to buy a photograph or a picture or a limited edition or something from the Carlyle Collection. I mean you have to have art in your life."
After two years of market research and piling up several million dollars in inventory, the company expects to hit the market in September, but it's already getting rave reviews from the home decorating industry.
"I think they're great for an office, you know, the home," explained Don Zuber, owner of Tokoro Home Furnishings. "And I think middle America ... is where they're really going to sell.
"The replica business is very good for the price range that these are priced in," said Robert Bentley, art dealer at Classic Artforms. "It's an area where everyone can seem to buy it, while with original art you can't."
That's just what the folks at Carlyle are counting on, as they hope to rack up about $100 million in sales in the next three to five years. 
-- by staff writer Gayla Hope
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