Peter Lik, a landscape photographer, working at his headquarters in Las Vegas earlier this month. In December, his company announced that an anonymous collector spent $6.5 million for a photograph called “Phantom,” which shows a human-shaped swirl of dust in Antelope Canyon in Arizona.”
Peter Lik is in awe of himself. When he describes his career as a fine-art photographer, he speaks with the satisfaction of a guy who has performed miracles, at the pace of a bystander who just caught a glimpse of Superman. The words tumble forth in self-exalting, run-on sentences, most of them laced with profanity, all of them in the sunny, chummy accent of his native Australia.
“I’m the world’s most famous photographer, most sought-after photographer, most awarded photographer,” he said one recent afternoon, sipping a can of Red Bull in a conference room at Peter Lik USA, a 100,000-square-foot headquarters in Las Vegas devoted solely to the production and sale of Peter Lik photography. “So I said” — and what Mr. Lik said next is an unprintable version of “the heck with it,” and then — “I want to make something special, special, special, special.”
That something special was a photograph called “Phantom,” an image of an eerily human-shaped swirl of dust in Antelope Canyon in Arizona. In December, his company announced in a news release that an anonymous collector had spent $6.5 million for “Phantom.” That crushed the previous record, held by Andreas Gursky, whose “Rhein II” fetched $4.3 million at an auction in 2011, and Cindy Sherman, whose “Untitled #96” brought $3.9 million at another auction the same year.
But Mr. Gursky and Ms. Sherman are titans, with solo shows in pre-eminent museums.
Who is Peter Lik?
It irks him a little that you have to ask. Because by one measure — money — Mr. Lik may well be the most successful fine-art photographer who ever lived. He has sold $440 million worth of prints, according to his chief financial officer, in 15 galleries in the United States that he owns and that sell his work. The images are mostly panoramic shots of trees, sky, lakes, deserts and blue water in supersaturated colors. Generally speaking, his buyers are not people who acquire the art of Andreas Gursky and Cindy Sherman.
Which is just one reason that Mr. Lik considers himself an artist working outside a system established by elitist tastemakers. And while he says he doesn’t mind being snubbed by the establishment, part of him is bothered that his renown has lagged woefully behind his level of financial success.
So six months ago, he had an idea. Nearly every Peter Lik photograph is printed in a “limited edition” of 995; the first print sells at about $4,000, with the price rising as the edition sells out. With his eye fixed on a record-setting sale, he printed a single copy of “Phantom.” Then he alerted a handful of his most ardent collectors, one of whom, he said, agreed to the $6.5 million price. Before the deal was signed, Mr. Lik hired a public relations firm to make sure that the sale, and the record, were noticed.
“The P.R. firm dropped those off yesterday,” said Mr. Lik, looking at four fat ring binders, which an associate had just plopped on a table. They contain hundreds of stories from around the world about the “Phantom” sale. Typical was the reaction of Time magazine, which published the headline, “This is officially the most expensive photo ever.”
It’s hard to know what’s “official” about it. Previous records in photography were set by competing bidders in public auctions for images that were familiar and celebrated. This was a private sale for a newly printed photograph, and scant details were offered. But while the buyer’s hidden identity inevitably arched some eyebrows, anonymity in such deals is not unusual. Joshua Roth, the Los Angeles lawyer who represented the buyer, declined to name his client, though he emphasized that the client exists.
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Generally, photographers who perform well at auctions have appeared in museums, won praise from critics and have printed a very small number of a given image. The sole museum Peter Lik mentions on plaques in his galleries is the Smithsonian, but he’s been exhibited only in its National Museum of Natural History in group shows of nature photography. And over the years, he has effectively flooded his own market.
So anyone buying his work assuming that it will appreciate is all but certainly in for an unhappy surprise. But given the sheer volume of Liks on the market, his scarcity in museums and the scorn he attracts from gallery owners, the question is: Why do so many people call David Hulme expecting good news?
One answer is that the vast majority of Mr. Lik’s buyers are not well versed in the secondary art market, and they believe that because prices go up inside the galleries, they go up outside them, too. This confusion over price, which is dictated by the company, and value, which is determined by the broader market, is sometimes encouraged by the sales team, according to two former executives at Peter Lik USA, who declined to be identified for fear of being sued by the company. The eight-step presentation, the elaborate price tiers, the long list of professional awards, the “romancing” of the art — all have the effect of suggesting to potential customers that they are making an investment, not spending money. “The salesman would say, ‘Peter Lik is the most awarded landscape artist in history,’ ” said one former executive. “This photograph started at $4,000 and it sold out at $200,000. Now, you tell me how good an investment it is.”
Mr. VanBrocklin, the sporting goods manager, seemed to have bought this message when he said to his friend at the Venetian, “This is one of those deals where you don’t lose money.” That widespread impression has led Mr. Hulme to question whether Lik galleries are “misleading” customers.
Mr. Fatoohi, the Lik executive, said that sales reps are instructed during those four-day training courses to emphasize the beauty of Mr. Lik’s work, and anyone in the galleries who makes rosy investment claims risks being fired. “We tell clients who ask about future values, ‘Buy because you love it,’ ” Mr. Fatoohi said. “There are no guarantees.”
The secondary art market was the one subject that Mr. Lik was reluctant to discuss. Presented with the Artnet results and pressed for a comment, he said of his work, “It’s like a Mercedes-Benz. You drive it off the lot, it loses half its value.”
Mr. Bernfield, the collector with 50 Liks, sounds as if he’d be content with his purchases no matter what. He loves the images. That said, he also believes that his photographs are a good investment, a conclusion that stems largely from the delighted reactions of friends. But he has other evidence, and not surprisingly, all of it is lifted directly from the gallery: the bustle of customers, the list of accolades, the pricing tiers.
And Peter Lik just sold an image for a record-breaking $6.5 million, didn’t he?
A version of this article appears in print on February 22, 2015, on page BU1 of the New York edition with the headline: Selling Prints. Printing Money.. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
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