Sold Out: What the Gold Colour Way of Nothing for Granted Says About the Screenprint Market

The gold colour way of Nothing for Granted is already sold out. It happened faster than any other colour way in the collection, and it's not really a surprise — gold is one of the most difficult colours to get right in screenprinting, and when it's done properly, it produces a depth and richness that photographs never quite capture in person.

I'm Sam Leitch, a contemporary New Zealand artist working in narrative-driven surrealist printmaking, and the pace at which that colour way moved says something bigger than just demand for one piece. Screenprinting, as a medium, is in the middle of a genuine market shift — and Nothing for Granted selling through the way it has is a small, local example of a much larger pattern.

Why Gold Is the Colour Way Collectors Chase

Gold ink in screenprinting isn't a standard hand-mixed colour the way most tones are. It typically requires metallic pigments that behave differently under the screen, reflect light rather than simply absorbing it, and shift in tone depending on the angle you're viewing from. That visual complexity is part of why a gold colour way tends to have a different presence in a room than a flat, matte tone. It's less a colour choice and more a lighting effect built directly into the paper.

With the gold colour way of Nothing for Granted now sold out, the collection's other 8 colour ways remain available — each its own limited, signed and numbered hand-pulled edition, produced with Artrite Screen Printing on Fabriano Artistico cotton rag paper.

The Data Behind the Shift

This isn't just anecdotal. Industry reporting from Maddox Gallery, one of the most active dealers in the global print market, has tracked the art print market moving from a secondary category into a central part of the international art trade over the past decade — a shift reflected in auction data, online sales trends, and pricing patterns across the sector.

Sell-through rates at print auctions have been rising, liquidity across online and private sales channels has increased, and six-figure pricing is now established for blue-chip editions, all pointing toward prints being treated as a serious, disciplined collecting category rather than an entry-level alternative to original works.

Separately, the same reporting has tracked both the frequency of print auctions and total print sale revenue roughly doubling over the past decade, with auction volume rising more than 35% in a single recent year. Screenprinting specifically sits at the centre of that growth. Popularised decades ago by Andy Warhol, it's now recognised as the most widely used printing technique in the market today.

Why This Matters Beyond the Big Names

Reports like this tend to focus on blue-chip names — Warhol, Hirst, Banksy — because that's where the largest transaction volumes sit. But the underlying shift they're describing isn't really about any single artist. It's about collectors increasingly understanding what separates a genuinely limited, hand-pulled edition from a mass-produced reproduction, and pricing that distinction accordingly.

That's the same shift playing out at a smaller scale with Nothing for Granted. A 29-colour hand-pulled screenprint, produced across 9 colour ways, isn't competing with décor-store wall art. It's part of the same category of work the wider market is increasingly recognising as genuinely collectible, regardless of scale or artist name recognition.

Market data referenced above is drawn from Maddox Gallery's print market reporting (maddoxgallery.com).

Nothing for Granted - Beginning

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the gold colour way of Nothing for Granted still available? No — the gold colour way sold out. The remaining 8 colour ways are still available online.

Why is gold a difficult colour in screenprinting? Gold typically requires metallic pigments that behave differently to standard inks, reflecting light rather than simply absorbing it, which makes it harder to print consistently but gives finished prints a distinctive depth.

Is the screenprint market actually growing? Yes — industry reporting from Maddox Gallery shows print auction frequency and sales revenue roughly doubling over the past decade, with screenprinting recognised as the most widely used printing technique in the current market.

How many colour ways of Nothing for Granted are left? Eight of the original 9 colour ways remain available, each a separate limited, signed and numbered edition.

Explore the Remaining Colour Ways

See the 8 remaining colour ways of Nothing for Granted here.