Commissions and Subscription services - for artists

Gallery Commissions and Subscriptions – for artists, by Australian Art Blogger, Rob Kennedy

Visual artists are facing rough times ahead. Not only do we need to contend with high prices to restock the brush jar, paints and canvases are becoming increasingly expensive. My own relatively small artworks can cost over $120 just to make up the canvas. I make my own and it takes about two days to do it, that's for canvas glued to panel. So you grin and bear it, but now the painting is dry and ready to go out the door.

Unless you're selling direct to a collector, then you need to go to a gallery. Once upon a time that meant going to the local gallery dropping off your work and going home to wait for a call or a cheque.

Then came along online galleries. They do some marketing and manage freight and then creaming off the commission or as it's often called now, “market or platform services”. They handle any disputes and try to keep everyone happy.

The recent explosion of online galleries is jaw dropping perhaps fuelled by the comments made by two brother gallery directors about how much money they'd returned to artists. In general though, I think a lot of people believe that there's money to be made selling artwork. No doubt there is, otherwise galleries wouldn't exist.

Once upon a time bricks and mortar galleries sold on commisson, and even cafes were in on the act. Years ago galleries were taking 30% and that number has increased so that you can expect to pay at least 40% with many charging around 50%.

However, online galleries have found unique ways of attracting artists with a combination of subcription based services, commisions or both. For example at the time of writing:

Bluethumb are charging 40% + 4% GST

The Online Art Gallery 25% + GST

Art Lovers Australia 33% + GST + $16.50 p/m subscription.

Ground Zero no commision, monthly subscription $20.00.

The “obvious” choice seems be the Online Art Gallery with a 25% commission, unless you're established and selling, then Ground Zero might appeal more.

Maybe but what's more important to the artist is how proactive their gallery is. There's no point being an artist in three galleries if none of those galleries sell your work. Finding one that works for you isn't easy and if you read the gallery mission statements you could easily believe that they are all created equal. Passion, trying to get a fair deal for artists, blah blah.

It's not surprising that artists get confused and frustrated

The gallery is for an artist their single largest cost. My suggestion is to go to several artist forums and start asking about galleries. Get ready for some emmotional diatribe. Artists are emmotional and their frustration can lead to some lofty commentary. However, when the dust settles you might want to start with the gallery that gets the least negativity. Also bear in mind that public forums are a great place to offload and the commentary can be somewhat clouded. Remember to isolate yourself from the rhetoric and focus on the task at hand … that is, the best deal for you.