How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist by Caroll Michels

How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist by Caroll Michels

Author:Caroll Michels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allworth Press
Published: 2018-02-21T05:00:00+00:00


Market Value Considerations

Set prices that build in a profit margin, regardless of whether you sell through a dealer. The amount of profit is a personal decision and should have some relationship to the art market, although art market values are elusive, fickle, and illogical.

You can determine a seemingly elusive market value by visiting many galleries in person or online, finding work that is allied to your own, studying prices and the artists’ résumés, and comparing their career levels to your own. But keep in mind that other artists’ price lists should serve only as “information,” not as gospel, because many artists make the mistake of letting dealers determine the value of their work and take the “follow the crowd” approach.

Knowing the amount of labor, materials, and overhead spent on creating work and becoming familiar with market values can help you build confidence for establishing prices. But, of course, the process of gaining self-confidence is quickly accelerated when work is sold at the price you want.

NO MORE REGIONAL PRICING

Artists sometimes allow work to be sold at certain prices in large cities but lower the prices if the work is exhibited in small cities or towns. This is a very bad idea. Regional pricing is insulting. It penalizes your market in large cities and patronizes your market elsewhere. It also supports the elitist notions that people in small cities or rural areas are incapable of valuing art.

The chances are, if you are an artist living in a rural area or small city and are affiliated with a local gallery, you have been persuaded to price work at what the dealer thinks the local market will bear. If you also connect with a gallery in Chicago, for example, make sure the prices in the local gallery are in accord with what the dealer in Chicago is charging. Prices must be universally consistent, whether your work is sold in Vienna, Virginia, or Vienna, Austria.

PRICE LIST FORMATS

The following section focuses on important issues that need to be addressed regarding the contents of a price list.

Retail versus Wholesale Price Lists

When assembling a price list, always state the retail price, and make sure the word retail appears on the price list. The danger of stating a “wholesale price” or “artist’s price” is that it gives dealers carte blanche to price your work in any way they see fit. The “wholesale price” is construed as an artist’s bottom line, and many dealers feel justified in selling work for as much as several hundred percent above the wholesale price and pocketing the difference. This happened to an artist who signed a consignment agreement in a gallery in New York that required artists to state their wholesale prices. The gallery sold his sculpture for $25,000. The artist received $2,500! The transaction was completely legal because the artist agreed in writing to receive a wholesale price of $2,500.

Another problem with wholesale pricing is that it prevents artists from establishing a real market value. For example, if you are using a wholesale



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