What to Know About Art Prints

Buying art shouldn’t require a glossary. But the words on the label — giclée, archival, cotton rag, pigment — are the difference between a print that holds its color for decades and one that goes flat in a few years. Here is what each one actually means, in plain English.

What Crum Art Sells

What does Crum Art sell?

Fine art giclée prints of original Crum family artwork — western art, cowboy prints, Texas wall art and more — made to order in Fort Worth, Texas, printed on 100% cotton rag sourced from an English mill, using archival pigment inks, and hand-signed by the artist before shipping.

Prints come in two shapes and five sizes each. Rectangles run 8x10 through 24x36; squares run 8x8 through 24x24 — a shape that suits cactus prints and weirdcore art particularly well. Every size is built to fit a standard, off-the-shelf frame. Most pieces are open edition, which means the image stays available rather than selling out.

That is the whole offer. The rest of this page explains what each of those words means and why any of it should matter to you.

Does every print start as an original?

Yes. Every image in this catalog began as a physical original — a painting or a photograph made by one of the Crums. Nothing here started life as a digital file, and nothing was assembled from stock.

That is the reason the paper and the inks matter at all. There is an actual surface being reproduced — brushwork, canvas weave, the grain of a photograph — and the whole point of printing on cotton rag with pigment is to carry that across intact. On a mass-market poster there would be nothing to carry.

Do you sell the original paintings too?

Caya Crum’s one-of-a-kind acrylic and oil works on canvas and panel are listed on the original paintings page, with sizes, prices and the story behind each one. Originals are sold by inquiry rather than through the cart.

The difference between the two is the obvious one: an original exists once, and when it sells it is gone. A print makes the image available to more than one wall. A print is not a lesser version of an original — it is a different way of owning the same picture.

What makes a print a giclée?

“Giclée” is not a certification and nobody polices it. In practice a print earns the name when three things are true:

• Archival paper — acid-free and lignin-free, ideally 100% cotton rag rather than wood pulp or a blend.
• Pigment inks — not dye-based, which fade in years rather than generations.
• High-resolution reproduction — enough detail that the surface and texture of the original survive the trip to paper.

Miss any of the three and what you have is a poster with a French name. All three are true of every Crum Art print, which is why the specifics are published rather than implied.

Giclée, Explained

How do you pronounce giclée?

Zhee-CLAY. It’s French, and it has been mangled in galleries for thirty years, so nobody will judge you. The word came from a French verb meaning to spray — a reference to how the ink is laid down.

What is a giclée print?

A giclée is the museum standard for fine-art printing: archival pigment inks laid onto fine-art paper at very high resolution. It is the same process museums and galleries use to reproduce original artwork. The term describes a standard of production, not a brand or a machine — which is why it’s worth asking what paper and what inks a seller actually uses.

What is the difference between a giclée and a regular art print?

Ordinary posters use standard inks on standard paper and fade within a few years. A giclée uses archival pigment inks on cotton rag paper, built to resist fading for generations. If you’re hanging it somewhere you’ll see it every day, the difference shows — first in the depth of the color, later in how long it keeps it.

What “Archival” Actually Means

What does archival mean?

Archival means a material is chemically stable enough that it won’t destroy itself over time. It is not a marketing adjective — it’s a description of what happens to the piece when nobody is looking at it. Cheap paper and dye-based ink carry the seeds of their own decay: the paper turns acidic and yellows, the dyes break down under light. Archival materials are chosen specifically so that doesn’t happen.

What is archival paper?

Archival paper is acid-free and lignin-free, made to stay chemically neutral for the long haul. Lignin is the compound in wood pulp that turns old newsprint brown — remove it, and the paper stops attacking itself. That is the whole idea: paper that ages without turning on the image it carries.

What is acid-free paper?

Paper with a neutral or slightly alkaline pH. Ordinary wood-pulp paper is acidic, and that acidity slowly embrittles and yellows the sheet from the inside out. Acid-free paper doesn’t. It’s the minimum bar for anything you intend to keep.

Why 100% Cotton Rag

What is cotton rag paper?

Cotton rag paper is made from cotton fiber rather than wood pulp. Because there is no wood in it, there is no lignin and no acid to begin with — it starts stable instead of being treated into stability. It is the same class of paper used for archival documents and original watercolors.

Why does 100% cotton matter?

“Cotton blend” papers exist, and they are cheaper. Every percentage point of wood pulp is a percentage point of material that will eventually acidify. One hundred percent cotton removes the question entirely.

There is a second reason, and it is the one you actually see: cotton rag has a soft, slightly textured surface that holds pigment differently than coated stock. Color sits in the sheet rather than on top of it. That surface is a large part of why a good giclée reads as artwork instead of as a reproduction — most visible in painterly work like our Texas sky paintings.

Where does Crum Art’s paper come from?

England. Our cotton rag comes from a papermaking house that has been at it since the 1700s — a mill that was supplying artists before Texas was a state, and that has spent three centuries doing one thing.

That is not a decorative fact. Fine-art paper is difficult to make consistently: the fiber, the surface, the way the sheet takes pigment and holds it. Mills that have been refining the same process for that long produce paper that behaves the same way every time, which is what lets a print look right at 8x10 and still look right at 24x36.

It costs more than the alternatives. It is the part of a print nobody photographs and everybody touches.

Inks

What are archival inks?

Archival inks are pigment-based. The color comes from solid particles suspended in the ink rather than from a dissolved dye, and solid pigment is far more resistant to breaking down under light and air.

Pigment ink vs dye ink — what’s the difference?

Dye inks are dissolved colorants. They can look brilliant on day one and they are cheap to produce, but light takes them apart — visible fading in a few years is normal, faster in a sunny room. Pigment inks hold. That is the entire trade, and it is why every archival print worth the name uses pigment.

What inks does Crum Art use?

Archival pigment inks, on every print, in every size. No dye-based ink is used on any piece that leaves the studio.

It is worth being plain about this, because “giclée” is an unregulated word. Nothing stops a seller from printing dye ink on coated stock and calling it a giclée, and plenty do. The two things that actually determine whether a print survives are the paper and the ink — ours are 100% cotton rag and archival pigment, and we will tell you that before you ask.

How long will a giclée print last?

Pigment inks on cotton rag are made to last generations rather than years. Nobody can put an honest number on it, because the answer depends almost entirely on where you hang it — direct sun and high humidity will shorten the life of any print, and a shaded wall under glass will extend it well beyond anything you need to worry about.

Living With a Print

How do you preserve art prints?

Archival materials do most of the work. To help them along:

• Frame under glass or acrylic — it blocks dust, handling, and a good deal of UV.
• Keep the piece out of direct sunlight. This is the single biggest factor — worth knowing for high-color pieces like pink wall art.
• Avoid heavy humidity — bathrooms and unconditioned garages are hard on paper.
• Handle by the edges before framing. Skin oils transfer.
• Store flat or rolled in acid-free material, never pressed against cardboard.

That’s it. There is no maintenance ritual.

How do I frame a print?

However you want to. Framing is personal in the same way the art is personal — it is a second set of choices laid over the first, and two people can frame the same print and end up with two different pieces. A thin black frame makes an image graphic and modern. A wide mat makes it quiet and serious. Ornate gold makes it look like it has always been there. None of those is the correct answer.

Framing is genuinely a craft, and a good framer is an artist working in wood, glass and proportion. If you have one, use them — they will see things in a piece you did not.

What we do on our end is stay out of your way. Every size in the lineup, rectangle and square, matches a standard off-the-shelf frame, so nothing here obligates you to custom framing. Buy the ready-made frame you like and it fits. Take it to a framer and they have a clean, standard sheet to work from. The decision stays yours either way, which is the point.

Two practical notes: a mat gives an image room to breathe, and going one frame size up to accommodate one is the single easiest way to make a print look more considered. And a rolled print flattens easily under a few books overnight before it goes in.

Sizes

What sizes do art prints come in?

Crum Art prints come in two shapes, and every size in both is built to fit a standard, off-the-shelf frame.

• Rectangles: 8x10 (matted to fit an 11x14 frame), 11x14, 16x20, 18x24, and 24x36.
• Squares: 8x8 (matted to fit a 12x12 frame), 12x12, 16x16, 20x20, and 24x24.

The two smallest sizes ship matted, which is why an 8x10 print goes into an 11x14 frame — the mat makes up the difference and gives the image room to breathe. Everything larger is sized to drop straight in.

What size should I buy?

The honest rule is to measure the wall, not the art. A few starting points:

• Above a sofa or bed: aim for roughly two-thirds the width of the furniture. One 24x36, or a pair of 16x20s, does what a lone 11x14 cannot.
• A gallery wall: mix sizes deliberately. Anchor with the largest piece off-center and build outward, two to three inches between frames. Series group naturally — cowboy boot prints or howdy signs.
• Narrow walls, hallways, between windows: 8x10 and 11x14 hold those spots without crowding them.
• A gift: the middle sizes travel and fit best. You rarely know the recipient’s wall.

Hang the center of the piece 57 to 60 inches from the floor — museum height — and a touch higher above furniture.

What does signed and numbered mean?

Signed means the artist put their hand on the piece after it was printed and approved it. Numbered means it belongs to a limited run — 12/50 is the twelfth of fifty, after which no more are made.

What is an open edition print?

An open edition is built around the image. If the piece is right for the person and the wall, it is available, at a price that isn’t inflated by the count.

That matters most when art is a gift, because gifts arrive on somebody else’s schedule. The right piece for a specific person shouldn’t be gone because a run sold out three years ago — which is why pieces in collections like our housewarming gifts stay available year after year. Many Crum Art prints are open edition for exactly that reason.

Does open edition mean mass produced?

No. Open edition describes how many prints can exist over time. It says nothing about how they are made.

Crum Art prints are made to order in Fort Worth, Texas, by Crum Art. Nothing sits in a warehouse. When you order a piece, that print is produced for you — and every stage of it, the file, the paper, the ink, the color, the final look of the sheet, happens under our own supervision rather than being handed to a third party who has never seen the original.

That is the part that actually protects you. A print run nobody is watching drifts: color shifts, a sheet goes out with a flaw, and nobody catches it because nobody is looking. We are the ones looking. Every print is checked before it is signed, and it is signed before it ships.

So the count is open. The process is not.

Is an open edition print still signed?

Yes — every print, every size, hand-signed by the artist before it leaves the studio. The signature isn’t a scarcity device. It is the artist confirming that this particular sheet came out right and is going out under their name.

Which makes the honest comparison simple: a signed open edition of something someone will love beats a numbered print of something they feel nothing about. Buy the image. The number on the back is a collecting decision, not a quality one.

Why We Make Them This Way

Crum Art is trying to do one thing: make the best art print we know how to make, and charge a fair price for it.

Those two goals usually pull against each other. Archival materials cost more — English cotton rag costs more than blended stock, pigment inks cost more than dye, and made-to-order costs more per piece than printing a thousand and warehousing them. The ordinary way to reconcile that is to make the print expensive and call it collectible.

We would rather not. The materials aren’t where we look for savings, so the price has to be honest instead: a print costs what the size costs, the same paper and the same inks at every rung of the ladder, and the number of prints in an edition doesn’t inflate what you pay. Art that sits in a drawer because it was too precious to hang isn’t doing its job.

The work is meant to go on a wall in a real house and stay there for a long time — whether that is a Fort Worth scene or a rodeo print. Everything above — the paper, the ink, the signature, the standard frame sizes, the open editions — comes out of that one idea.