Gallery Etiquette

[AKady]

So I had a question about galleries. I just in to my first on, it is a local gallery for local artists. They take a 40% cut. So I have a friend who really wants to buy one of my pieces in the gallery, but cannot afford the gallery price but would be willing to buy it for my 60% price. I was wondering is it bad etiquette to change that piece out with another to sell it to a friend? My work has been in the gallery for about a month and nothing has sold. They even had one of their bi-annual art crawls.

[GlennT]

What you propose is not ethical if your friend first saw the work in the gallery.
A short term gain, a long term slippery slope of bad business ethics.
What would be a better solution would be to have your friend commission a new piece at the affordable price, or reduce your 60% cut to make it affordable to your friend.

[ironman]

Hi, What you propose is unethical and one of the reasons that there is sometimes distrust in the artist/gallery relationship. Even doing a new piece for a client and then selling it for a lot less than the work in the gallery is going for is to me unethical. You can't undercut your gallery and if you read your gallery contract, they probably have an exclusive for a certain area and you would probably owe them a small commission anyway since your work was first seen in that gallery.
Time payments are an option as are credit card sales, talk to the gallery and work something out.
Many times, a person says they can't afford a work of art but then you'll see them spending their money (which is certainly their right) on what you'd consider superfluous things
Have a great day,
Jeff

[cheesepaws]

Tell your gallery that your friend is interested in the piece for X$. Suggest that the gallery let him buy the piece for said amount BUT take the difference out of YOUR 60% of what you were originally asking. That way the Gallery still gets the 40% they were expecting, your friend gets the work for the price he can afford and you get a sale from a gallery (which always sounds nice even if you took a hit to your profit).

So, if the work is now listed for $100 then the artist/gallery split is $60/$40. But if your friend can only offer $60, the split could look like this: $20/$40.

It may seem silly, but you ARE doing it for a friend and you might just help foster a closer and more dedicated relationship with your dealer.

[AKady]

Originally Posted by GlennT

What you propose is not ethical if your friend first saw the work in the gallery.
A short term gain, a long term slippery slope of bad business ethics.
What would be a better solution would be to have your friend commission a new piece at the affordable price, or reduce your 60% cut to make it affordable to your friend.

I was strongly conflicted about this issue as I did not want to create bad blood between the gallery and myself. She actually was the model for my photoshoot with the pieces. Sadly she told me a day after I dropped everything off at the gallery.

I will talk to her and the gallery and just lower the price for her with the gallery maintaining thier 40%

[LimeCutter]

If the gallery has a regular client it is often the case that they like to be in a position to offer that client a discount. The gallery will almost always want to split the discount with the artist. e.g if they offer a 10% discount on a 60/40 split the client buys the pieces at 90% and the money payment gets split 55/35 bgetween gallery and artist.

Why don't you approach the gallery and ask if they would be willing to take some of the discount if not half of it. This seems a fair business proposition and puts you on an equal footing with the gallery.

It means an immediate sale for the gallery, increased turnover, you appear a more saleable artist and the gallery may want more of your work.

Too often do I hear about artist coming off worse within artist/gallery relationships.

Hope it goes well

[racine]

Originally Posted by LimeCutter

Why don't you approach the gallery and ask if they would be willing to take some of the discount if not half of it. This seems a fair business proposition and puts you on an equal footing with the gallery.

It means an immediate sale for the gallery, increased turnover, you appear a more saleable artist and the gallery may want more of your work.

the added bonus is that you could put in another piece to refresh the show, especially if its going slow, a sale through the gallery system does help in the long run and honesty counts sometimes, i found galleries can be adaptable on the bottom line.....good grief am i really trying to help a gallery?.. it may help u though.