I am looking at a lithograph coming up for auction listed with the artist listed as “Fernando Botero (after)”. What does the “(after)” mean? I have seen museum art labelled like “John Smith (after Picasso)” to indicate that artist John Smith was attempting to create art in the style of Picasso, but I have never seen this particular notation. The same auction show three related items all listed as “Fernando Botero (after)” that all very much have the distinctive Botero style.
Yep, ‘After’ in this case means to follow on from Botero in style. It may be intended to copy [honestly or deceitfully], or just be one artist trying on another one’s suit to see if it fits. There’s no sense that it could be Botero but without clear proof, which might be expressed as ‘Attributed to’.
Other similar terms could be ‘From the school of’, ‘from the workshop of’, both of which would imply some level of direction and maybe direct involvement by the artist.
The particular formulation looks very clumsy. “After Botero” wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows whatsoever for an attribution to someone working in his style.
A quick Google of the phrase and title however throws up lots of sites like this. These are selling bog standard oil copies of the original by nobodies. Perhaps nice enough to have on your wall, but utterly valueless otherwise.
If it’s a copy by “a nobody”, that doesn’t mean don’t buy it. It just means if you’re buying it then buy it for its face value only, with no expectation of future financial gain.
Since the going rate seems be about 200 bucks or so, I’m not really sure that the difference between “nice enough to have on your wall, but utterly valueless otherwise” and “buy it for its face value only, with no expectation of future financial gain” is any much of a muchness worth commenting on. They’re basically selling crap.