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, unheated warehouse in East London back in the late nineties, watching a brilliantly talented painter try to explain to a potential collector why he couldn’t find the invoice for a sold landscape. He was surrounded by masterpieces, but he was drowning in a sea of loose […]
If you go searching for a “complete guide to watercolour” online, you will be buried under a mountain of expensive, professional-grade pigment recommendations and lectures on the “spiritual connection” between the artist and the water. It’s exhausting. I spent twenty-six years in a gallery watching young artists sink hundreds of pounds into the most prestigious […]
I remember a client in 2014—bronze, 45cm, 2012—who spent forty minutes swooning over the texture of a piece, only to realize three weeks later that it wouldn’t actually fit through his front door. It is a classic, avoidable tragedy. Most people approach the market thinking that once they’ve mastered the nuances of canvas and pigment, […]
I remember sitting in the back of a dimly lit studio in 2004, watching a young painter struggle with a massive, textured oil on linen, 120cm x 150cm, 2004. He had spent a small fortune on professional-grade, high-tech floodlights, yet the painting looked like a muddy, lifeless mess under the glare. He was convinced that […]
I remember sitting in my back office in 2008, staring at a stack of crumpled invoices and a notebook that looked like it had been through a war, trying to figure out if a particular landscape piece had actually sold or if I’d just imagined the commission. Most people will tell you that you need […]
If you search for a “complete guide to acrylic painting” online, you’ll mostly find two things: expensive, color-coded tutorials for hobbyists and glossy marketing fluff that suggests you need a thousand-dollar set of tubes to be taken seriously. It’s exhausting. I spent twenty-six years watching artists struggle because they were taught how to mix a […]
I remember sitting in my back office in 2004, staring at a landscape by a young painter who had just been told his work was “priceless” by a boutique dealer in London. He was sweating, clutching a contract that essentially treated him like a charity case, convinced that the mystery of the market was some […]
I remember standing in the back of a crowded opening in Chelsea, watching a young painter frantically explain his “process” to a collector, only to realize he hadn’t even considered how his massive canvases would actually sit within a domestic space. He was selling a dream, but he hadn’t mastered the geometry of the frame. […]
I remember a man in my gallery back in 2004, standing in front of a silver gelatin print, looking utterly paralyzed. He wasn’t moved by the image; he was terrified of the transaction. He kept asking if the “scarcity” was real or just a clever bit of marketing, and frankly, I couldn’t blame him for […]
I remember a Tuesday afternoon in 2004, standing in the back office of my gallery with a local collector who was clutching a “limited edition” lithograph like it was a holy relic. He had paid three months’ mortgage for it, only to realize—after a very awkward conversation—that he’d actually bought a high-end digital giclée that […]