The art world runs on information asymmetry and it suits almost everyone except the artist. I write about what a commission split covers, why your work is priced wrong in both directions, how a gallery decides who to show, and what a collector is actually buying. I sold other people's work for twenty-six years and took half, so I can tell you exactly what that half was for and when it was not earned.
I remember sitting in the back of a drafty community hall in 2004, watching a young painter I’d championed weep with joy after winning a regional award. She thought the trophy was a golden ticket, a sign that the universe finally understood her. But as I watched the organizers scramble to figure out who was […]
I remember sitting in my back office twenty years ago, staring at a digital file sent by a promising painter that looked more like a blurry smudge of grey than a vibrant oil on canvas. He had spent three months on the piece and three minutes on the photo, and quite frankly, he’d just thrown […]
I remember a painter I represented in the late nineties—a brilliant, messy man who could capture light better than anyone I’d ever met. He signed a licensing deal for a stationery company because they promised him “exposure,” and within six months, he realized he’d essentially sold the rights to his soul for the price of […]
Oil on canvas, 30x40cm, 2014. I remember staring at it in my back room, feeling that familiar, hollow knot in my stomach because I knew—and I knew my collectors would know—that the piece was dead on arrival. Most “experts” will tell you that a failing work is a spiritual crisis or a lack of technical […]
I remember a client back in 2014—a lovely, wealthy woman who had spent three decades acquiring exquisite oils and bronzes—who sat me down in her library, looking utterly defeated. She had a million pounds’ worth of history hanging on her walls, but she couldn’t tell me if a piece was an original or a high-end […]
I remember sitting in my small gallery office, nursing a lukewarm Earl Grey and staring at a submission from a lovely painter whose work was, frankly, transcendent. But her artist statement? It was a dense, impenetrable thicket of “liminality,” “juxtaposition,” and “interrogating the zeitgeist” that made my eyes glaze over within three sentences. I didn’t […]
I remember sitting in my back office in 2004, watching a young painter realize—with a look of absolute, gut-wrenching horror—that he had signed over the reproduction rights to his entire portfolio just to get his work on a single cafe wall. He thought he was being “professional,” but he was actually being cannibalized. Most of […]
I remember standing in my gallery back in ’98, staring at a large-scale oil on canvas that a young, promising painter had brought in for a solo show. It was technically proficient, certainly, but it was exhausted. The artist had spent months scrubbing, layering, and correcting every microscopic imperfection until the soul of the piece […]
I once watched a well-meaning collector in my gallery attempt to “freshen up” a mid-century landscape with a damp microfiber cloth and a bit of enthusiasm. It was agonizing. They weren’t being malicious; they were simply falling for the myth that art is like a piece of fine mahogany furniture that needs a regular polish. […]
I remember sitting in my small gallery office, staring at a pile of application fees from a local non-profit that promised “unparalleled exposure” to a curated group of collectors. It was a beautiful lie. Most artists approach these opportunities with a sense of reverence, as if they are applying for a priesthood, but the truth […]