Photographer Sam Abell Talks about “Cheeky” Richard Prince After Prince Sold His Photo for Millions
May 29, 2015
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Before Richard Prince appropriated the photos of Instagram users, and long before the SuicideGirls re-appropriated their photos, the lazy “artist” became famous for stealing re-photographing Sam Abell’s iconic cowboy photos.
Prince took cigarette ads with Abell’s Marlboro Man images and photographed them in a way that basically “cropped” the text and logo out.
With Prince selling one of these photos for almost $1.3 million in 2005 and another for $3.4 million a few years later, he became a millionaire off of Abell’s work – who did not receive a single cent from either deal.
As you’d expect Abell certainly had an opinion on Prince’s actions, as well as the art establishment’s attitude towards stolen art, and he expressed it with admirable calmness.
Below is a video interview from 2008, after his re-photographed image was sold by Prince for a record-breaking $3.4 million:
“I put into it what I put into a photograph, I gave it life”, Abell says at the beginning of the interview. “I gave it its first life, and it’s my photograph. No one would disagree with that”.
Abell goes on to say that he’s not angry, or particularly amused, but Prince’s actions in his case are legal.
As frustrating and illogical as that may be, he’s probably correct. A legal battle between Patrick Cariou and Prince which began in 2008 had its twists and turns before the US Court of Appeals ruled in 2013 that most of Prince’s appropriated works in the case fell under fair use, while they settled the case in 2014 over the remaining few pieces that were to be re-evaluated by the court.
Trying to understand Prince, who copied his photo and make millions of it, Abell reached the conclusion that he must be a ‘cheeky fellow’ – talk about an understatement… The guy just made millions off of Abell’s work and gave him nothing in return!
“It’s obviously plagiarism,” Abell said, and added and that while it might be ok by the law of art or commerce, it’s “breaking the Golden Rule”.
“A secondary thought is,” Abell continues, “a photograph of mine could never be in the Guggenheim museum […] and that is because editorial photography for the most part is considered […] by the Guggenheim and by the art establishment not be not worthy, but copied by someone else it is worthy”.
Wondering why his photos were snubbed by the very same establishments that later proudly presented appropriated versions of them under Prince’s name, Abell stated that “the art world has something to answer for, and I look forward to their answer”.
In addition to the art world, Abell also mentioned that Prince has to now live with himself after breaking the ‘ultimate law’. Judging by Prince’s recent tweet, however, and the fact that galleries continue to display his work, it seems that both Prince and the art world responded with a big fat cup of STFU – as they continue to make a fortune off of other peoples’ work, of course.
Liron Samuels
Liron Samuels is a wildlife and commercial photographer based in Israel. When he isn’t waking up at 4am to take photos of nature, he stays awake until 4am taking photos of the night skies or time lapses. You can see more of his work on his website or follow him on Facebook.
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14 responses to “Photographer Sam Abell Talks about “Cheeky” Richard Prince After Prince Sold His Photo for Millions”
It seems as though Abell’s comments boil down to, “Don’t hate the player (Price). Hate the game (the art world).” I admire Abell’s attitude about the whole thing. I don’t know that I’d be quite as understanding of it all.
Abell is already both rich and famous, he can afford to not care about someone stealing his work, it happens all the time to someone like him.
For the rest of us, it is an insult. If Prince was helping give exposure to new artists or giving some of the obscene amount of money to them.. ok… maybe. But the guy simply does not give a shit.
That is disgusting
What those stories tell?
There is actually no human morality in our field?
Need to start going after the people who buy the work and the galleries who are selling them !!
Ok, say I’m a company and I want to use someone’s photo, whether in an advertisement or on my website, but don’t want to pay a license to use it. If I took that photo and simply cropped it thereby creating a “derivative work”, does that mean I’m not obligated to pay for that photo?
If true, that’s pretty lame. That basically means anybody can use someone else’s photos without compensation or even credit.
If not, then what makes it any different from what Prince has done? In fact, his actions were even worse as he turned around and sold that “cropped” photo for millions.
None of this makes any sense.
Probably because Fair Use doesn’t apply to commercial work, but does apply to news or fine art. You can show a picture of a Picasso in a news story about Picasso, but you can’t use a Picasso to sell chocolate bars without paying whoever owns the rights to those now.
Even so, Prince’s “art” is pretty dirty.
I don’t think I could be that calm about it, if it was my photo… I think Richard Prince, the magazines & museums are wrong for what they are doing and hope they get their just rewards.
Cheeky??? If a legal case didn’t work, I’d seriously consider smashing his teeth down his thieving throat. What a dirty, unscrupulous, dishonest, lazy, untalented arsehole.
Just what I was thinking. Thanks for writing this
whose buying these?, the originals would be better, specially the instagram ones…
If I take a picture of Richard Prince’s picture of a picture, the crop it, can I call it art and sell it to a major museum?
If Sam Abell was commissioned by Marlboro for the advertising, then corporate law probably comes into play. If Marlboro is still around (I don’t know since I don’t smoke), they could sue the bejeus out of Richard Prince.
Hypothetical question: with regard to the cropped ‘Cowboy’ picture; (which goes beyond plagiarism, by actually being a straight duplicate of the original picture). As Sam Abell is the authour of that picture and I assume the owner of the copyright and IP, if he were to walk into an ‘art gallery’ and remove Prince’s print of his work and walk out with it, could he be accused of theft?