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 once watched a very wealthy, very influential collector spend forty-five minutes trying to decide where to place a small, exquisite oil on copper—12cm by 8cm, 2018—only to end up hanging it nearly two feet above his mantelpiece. It was a tragedy. Most people treat their walls like a game of Tetris, just trying to […]
Stop treating your art like a charity project and start treating it like the business it is. I spent twenty-six years watching brilliant painters walk into my gallery with nothing but a portfolio and a prayer, completely blindsided by the sheer mechanics of a sale. Most of the advice you’ll find online is either way […]
I remember sitting in my back office ten years ago, staring at a painter who had just been rejected for the third time by a major arts council. He was talented, his work was vital, and he was utterly devastated because he thought he hadn’t been “artistic” enough for the committee. He’d treated the application […]
I spent twenty-six years watching bright, talented people walk into my gallery with a lifetime of technical skill and absolutely zero idea how to actually value their own hands. They’d arrive, eager for the “prestige” of representation, blissfully unaware that the gatekeepers were often just waiting to take a fifty percent cut of a price […]
I remember sitting in the back of my gallery in 2004, watching a young landscape painter stare at a canvas for forty minutes as if waiting for the oil to whisper its secrets. He wasn’t looking for inspiration; he was terrified of making a mistake that might devalue the work. We’ve been sold this romantic, […]
I remember sitting in my gallery office ten years ago, watching a young painter—a brilliant, raw talent—weep because she’d spent her entire year’s savings on a “prestigious” three-month program in Tuscany. She thought she was buying a career, but all she’d actually bought was a very expensive view of an olive grove and a certificate […]
I spent twenty-six years in a physical gallery, smelling of turpentine and expensive espresso, watching artists mistake “visibility” for “viability.” Now, every time I talk to a painter, they point to a flashy Instagram reel or a predatory website builder as if that’s a substitute for a business model. They think a complete guide to […]
I remember sitting in my old gallery back in 2015, staring at a stack of invoices and wondering why the “digital revolution” hadn’t actually made life any easier for the artists I represented. Everyone promised that the internet would democratize the market, but all I saw was a new breed of middleman charging hefty fees […]
I remember a young watercolorist—lovely girl, incredibly sensitive work—who came to my gallery in 2004 with a series of breathtaking landscapes, only to watch them turn a sickly, bruised yellow within three years because she’d insisted on using cheap, acidic matting to save a few pounds. It was heartbreaking, not just because the art was […]
I remember standing in the back of a crowded studio in the late nineties, watching a young painter try to force a sense of “prestige” into a landscape by hacking at the canvas with a heavy metal blade. He thought he was being expressive, but he was really just being messy, and frankly, he was […]