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 […]
I remember sitting in my gallery in 2004, watching a young painter try to explain why his work looked like a mishmash of three different dead masters, convinced that “versatility” was his greatest selling point. He thought he was being clever, but to a collector, he just looked like he was having an identity crisis. […]
I remember sitting in a drafty studio in 2004, watching a brilliant painter I represented spend three weeks weeping over a fifty-pound application fee for a residency that offered nothing but a bunk bed and a sense of prestige. We are constantly told that the secret to a sustainable career is some magical, all-encompassing complete […]
I remember sitting in the back office of my gallery in 2008, nursing a lukewarm gin and tonic while a lovely painter—a woman who could make light dance on canvas—cried because she felt “guilty” about increasing her rates. She thought she was being kind to her collectors by keeping her prices stagnant, but all she […]
I remember standing in a drafty, converted warehouse in East London back in 2012, watching a young painter spend three weeks meticulously curating a lighting scheme, only to realize he’d forgotten to budget for the insurance or the actual cost of the floor space. Everyone tells you that pop-ups are this democratic, low-stakes way to […]
I remember sitting in the back of a cramped, overheated studio in 1998, watching a young painter turn a shade of violent crimson because a collector had suggested his color palette felt “unsettled.” Most people will tell you that learning how to give and take critique is about “emotional intelligence” or “nurturing your creative spirit,” […]
I remember a collector—lovely man, smelled faintly of expensive gin and old paper—who sat in my gallery ten years ago, convinced he could “optimize” his estate by handing a stack of mediocre landscapes to a local museum. He thought he was being a saint, but he was actually just trying to turn a tax liability […]
I spent twenty-six years watching artists walk into my gallery with a look of profound, misplaced confidence, only to have their eyes glaze over the moment I pointed out a structural failure in a canvas. They’ve been taught that art is a mystical, untouchable thing, which is exactly why they struggle with how to critique […]
I remember sitting in my gallery back in 2004, watching a talented young painter practically apologize to a collector for the price on a canvas. He had spent three weeks agonizing over his math, trying to balance his rent against his “artistic worth,” only to end up underselling himself so badly that I had to […]