I remember sitting in my gallery office ten years ago, staring at a print of a landscape—oil on canvas, 30×40, 2012—that had been reproduced on a cheap tea towel without the artist’s permission. The artist was devastated, weeping because they felt their “soul” had been stolen, while the person who made the towels treated it […]
I remember a collector coming into my gallery ten years ago, clutching a glossy catalog like it was a holy relic, convinced he’d found the next big thing because a certain critic had used the word “sublime” in a review. He was ready to drop five figures on a piece that, frankly, had all the […]
I remember sitting in my small gallery back in 2004, staring at a stack of applications from artists who clearly thought they were writing for a PhD committee rather than a human being. They would hand me these dense, impenetrable walls of text, filled with words like “juxtaposition” and “liminality,” used as if they were […]
I remember sitting in a dimly lit corner of a London auction house twenty years ago, listening to a man in a bespoke suit explain the “sophisticated complexities” of liquidity management. He spoke about how loans between institutions work as if he were describing the inner workings of a star, using enough jargon to make […]
I remember sitting in my back office in 2008, nursing a lukewarm Earl Grey and staring at a smudge of cobalt blue on a signed agreement that had no mention of shipping insurance or payment timelines. A lovely, talented painter—the kind of person who thinks a legal document is an insult to the creative spirit—had […]
I remember sitting in my gallery back in 2004, staring at a stack of twenty-two wildly different oil on canvas works, all roughly 40x40cm, 2004, from a painter who had just “found their voice.” They were all technically brilliant, but they were a mess—a scattergun approach that left me with nothing to pitch to my […]
I remember the distinct, sickening sound of a heavy oak frame hitting a concrete floor in my gallery back in ’98—a sound that felt less like breaking wood and more like a financial heart attack. I spent the next three hours on the phone with an agent who spoke in nothing but impenetrable legalese, trying […]
Most artists approach the search for a residency like they’re looking for a holy grail, convinced that a few months in a drafty studio in Tuscany is the only thing standing between them and a career at the Tate. They spend thousands on application fees and travel, chasing a prestige that often doesn’t exist, only […]
Stop treating the acquisition of new talent like you’re navigating a high-stakes poker game where the house always wins. Most people think learning how to buy emerging artists requires a secret handshake, a membership to a private club, or a sudden, inexplicable windfall of cash. They follow the glossy, curated whispers of Instagram influencers and […]
I remember sitting in my small market town gallery in 1998, staring at a check for a landscape painting that had just sold, realizing that after the framer, the shipping, and my own fifty-percent cut, the artist was walking away with barely enough to cover their rent. There is a pervasive, almost sacred myth in […]