Nick Smith HEAVEN: how foil changes the print’s appearance

HEAVEN was Nick Smith’s 15 December 2021 release through RHODES, opening at 4 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time. The edition comprises ninety-nine prints, each 75 by 50 centimetres, made with Heidelberg Cylinder foil and letterpress on 550gsm paper. RHODES identifies the works as signed, numbered and embossed, with a certificate of authenticity. The launch announcement does not state a price; the current publisher catalogue labels the edition sold. Original RHODES notice.

The foil is the reason photographs of HEAVEN need careful interpretation. RHODES explicitly says the prints are the same and that differing illumination creates their changing appearance. Smith attributes the project to his discovery of a packaging foil and names Foilco as the collaborator who helped realise it. A different colour impression in two sales photographs therefore does not, by itself, establish two colour variants. The available evidence supports one numbered edition, whose appearance responds to its light source.

That is a different technical proposition from WHAAM, also released by RHODES in 2021. WHAAM is a giclée with screenprinted varnish on 310gsm Canson Rag Photographique, in an edition of seventy-seven at 64 by 128 centimetres. HEAVEN instead uses foil and letterpress, a narrower upright sheet and substantially heavier paper. The two are related through Smith’s treatment of colour, but their print methods and formats are not interchangeable. A catalogue entry describing HEAVEN simply as a giclée would erase the very process documented in its launch. RHODES’ edition archive.

There is a second nearby comparison in the publisher’s 2022 catalogue. REVELATION and GENESIS use screenprint with black and white diamond dust respectively on 640gsm Saunders Waterford paper, each in an edition of five and the same 75-by-50-centimetre format. Those works show why matching the sheet size alone is inadequate. HEAVEN’s foil, letterpress, 550gsm support and ninety-nine-copy edition identify a different object even where the overall dimensions coincide. The materials should be retained in the record rather than reduced to a generic special-finish label.

For someone considering HEAVEN now, two photographs under different ordinary lighting conditions would help explain its documented optical change more usefully than a single strongly lit image. The certificate, embossment, signature and edition number are the primary-described accompanying features to check. An AP allocation, exact foil product code and original retail price remain unstated in the inspected sources; none should be reconstructed from an unrelated edition or a later asking price.