Contact Commercial Galleries

Another critical strategy for your art business is to develop a market for your art. In the United States, there are myriad outlets for fine art sales. This includes intermediaries like commercial and nonprofit galleries, various web-based businesses and, of course, direct-to-collector sales. Perhaps the most extensive survey of the art market is the study commissioned annually by The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF).

Commercial galleries sell the work of their artists, who typically get solo exhibitions every second year. These galleries sell to private collectors, sell, and place work in museum collections, develop public relations, procure commissions and rent booths at art fairs. Galleries are also increasingly selling artists’ works via web-based strategies.

As an artist, it’s important to circulate — or at least have your work circulate and get seen, talked about, written about and shared on social media. Let others recommend you to gallerists. As Benjamin Tischer of Invisible Exports on New York’s Lower East Side says, “If another artist recommends an artist, we more than likely do a studio visit. The same holds true with curators and collectors. In the eight years we have existed, we have only shown two random submissions, both in group contexts.”