Beyond the Gallery
Building a career on your own terms
One of my goals in publishing Vasari21 from the start was to offer practical information not found in other magazines, like how to face the blank canvas, do a studio visit, cultivate collectors, and take care of other practical matters. So I’m resuscitating and updating a post I ran about five years ago under the title “Taking Charge” about charting your own career path.
As most artists are aware, the art-gallery scene has changed dramatically in the last two decades. The pandemic forced many small and mid-level galleries to close (indeed at the beginning of Covid-19, Jerry Saltz predicted the entire art market in New York would collapse), and though art fairs have rebounded, they are still an expensive proposition, for galleries and for individuals who invest in a booth on their own. Online sales of work have increased, which can be good for both artists and galleries, but the art world has suffered a certain corporatization, with mega-operations like Gagosian and Pace snapping up the biggest names and dominating the field for high-end collectors. There’s also been a trend toward a handful of powerful galleries collaborating with museums to create “art stars.”
Nonetheless, artists who persevere find their own ways to get the work out there and cultivate collectors, either without the help of galleries or before some dealer steps in to take charge. Here are the stories and strategies of five who have found ways to build careers, often outside the system. (I realize this is a long post, but you might pick up a good idea or two.)
Christopher Benson, Santa Fe, NM
I’ve been showing in galleries for more than 40 years now, but I often struggle with the relationship because I’m so independent. My favorite — and longest-standing — dealers see that independence as an asset, but some don’t and that can create tension. For better or worse, I just don’t like to be managed or told what to do. I’m sixty-five now and have been selling paintings since my early twenties. I’ve built a network of support over the years, and did much of that on my own, maintaining great relationships with a core group of collectors and curators ever since I started selling my work in the late 1970s.
One of my biggest reservations about the gallery system is that I don’t like my work to be sold to strangers. At the very least, I want to know who’s buying my paintings; to know they take an interest in the work that extends beyond its market value, beyond seeing it as a piece of interior decoration. I’m never happy when a dealer sells a work I particularly care about and then withholds the name or location of the collector. I understand that they’re afraid I’ll make an end-run around them, but I’m an ethical partner who respects those relationships and I never do that. Regardless of who buys my work, it remains my intellectual property by law, and will be the intellectual property of my heirs until seventy years after I’m gone. I just feel entitled to know “where the bodies are” and I want that for my wife and kids as much as for myself.
I post things on social media like everybody does these days, but I rarely do group email blasts. I message or call people up individually and talk to them directly most of the time. One exception to that rule though is that I always let my collectors know when things happen that are advantageous to the value of their collections. So, when I sell something for a lot of money or land an award or a museum placement, or publish a book, I let everybody know. I want them to see that I care about and am building the value and provenance of the works they hold.
I make a lot of different kinds of paintings—including hard-edged realism, figurative scenes, landscapes, seascapes, abstractions, etc. But they all look like I painted them. The institutions and the galleries generally want you to have one identifiable voice. But because I have so many different ways of making pictures, I also have a wider audience. And that’s a good thing. The galleries tend to want to put you in a box, to see that you will produce a dependable product.
But where’s the fun in that?
Leslie Parke, Cambridge, NY
When the market drops hugely—say, 2000 points—I know I’m going to have to go through years of no income. After the 2008 crash, I was just at the point where I was about to raise my prices, and instead I buckled down and lowered my expenses as much as possible. People kept saying, You need to do smaller, more affordable work. Instead I did bigger works. I ignored the market entirely because I knew that when the market turns, it turns quickly, and you have to take advantage of that moment. All these wealthy people who could have been buying came out in droves, and my bigger paintings sold well. I filled the larder, I bought supplies, I put away as much money as I could.
I’ve found that artists don’t do enough self-promotion. When I have a show, I reach out to architects, interior designers, writers. I regularly do open studios at a highly professional level.
The studio tool I value most is Artwork Archive, an online program to track everything you need—your inventory, your contacts, galleries, exhibition, grants. Everything. My favorite tool is one where you can send curated portfolios to your clients or dealers. I can't tell you how may opportunities I have been able to nail because I could get the pertinent information to the dealer or client within minutes of their inquiry. This software is invaluable.
And I’ve I always had my work photographed professionally. The slightest imperfection in an image is what people will remember, and if a dealer or juror is looking at hundreds of images, it’s the flaw that will stand out, not the work.
Peter Roux, Asheville, NC
I was fortunate to be included in the New American Paintings catalogue in 2000 and 2002. Artists still submitted slides; the Internet was in its infancy; and that catalogue at the time was a resource for galleries. I got about ten or eleven calls, and I ended up settling in with three or four major galleries, and three of those I still work with today.
But early on I found myself working with too many people, so I started pulling back a bit and concentrated on those where good relationships were developing.
A lot of collectors feel a kinship and a connection to a dealer as much as to an individual artist; you are one of many being looked at, so there’s no good reason to depend on one gallery to represent your work. I now work with about seven galleries, and that’s been fairly contrast for a while.
I thought of the country in terms of market, identifying metro areas that had some kind of art community and culture, and I try to have my work represented in different places that are not in competition with one another.
I also work with art consultants, the same way I do with galleries. They typically will keep artists on file and present images to clients, both corporate and private. They contact me when they have a job or a project for me. I’m working with a consultant in Boston who does all corporate work—and she does what she does really well—much of it on commission, for a hotel, for example. If a consultant reaches out to me, she has probably already shown the work to a client. There’s no guarantee of a sale, but it’s probably more likely.
You can Google art consultants in large metropolitan areas. Go to their websites and see what they do—are they working only at a blue-chip level? Or does your art fit into the mix? A consultant won’t typically say, “I want to be the only one you work with.” As the years as have gone by, I’ve enjoyed working as much or more with consultants as with art dealers.
Having shows is becoming less and less important. I’ve gotten to the point now that if I’m only working with consultants, and not having shows, I would be okay with that. The old aura of gallery openings is not that big of a deal; an opening is just a big cocktail party.
If I were an artist just out of school, I’d be approaching galleries, I’d follow consultants–on Instagram, for example. Find out which are good fits; two have found me through Instagram.
I make the living I do because I work with so many different people. Something’s always happening somewhere. And that’s the key….I’ve got direct sales, consultants, and galleries.
Barbara Rachko, New York, NY
I have been a professional artist for nearly four decades and since the beginning—in 1989 when I resigned my commission as a Navy Lieutenant to pursue art—I knew I was embarking on two demanding full-time jobs: the creative one of making art and the maybe-more-important one of getting that art exhibited and sold. I was about to work harder than I ever had and I was up for the challenge.
My immediate concern was finding a way to make a living. While I was still on active duty in the Navy, I had become proficient at making realistic portraits in pastel. I was recruited by two local portrait agencies, in Baltimore and Washington, DC, where I was then living. This didn’t last long though, and after a year, I became bored. How many times does an artist want to hear, “Please make me look younger” from someone who has final approval on what you create? Artists are independent by nature and one of the things I love about this life is having the freedom to do whatever I want. So I resolved to find another way.
Striving to build a résumé, I began entering juried exhibitions up and down the East Coast, mainly ones that offered prize money and were within five to six hours’ driving range. I was accepted into many of them and often won first or second prize. These shows had an important side benefit: they helped build my confidence. In the mid-1990s I began entering juried shows in New York. Again I had success. My first solo exhibition at a New York gallery, in SoHo, was the result of having won first prize in their juried show.
One thing quickly led to another. In July 1996 I applied for representation with Brewster Fine Arts, a 57th Street gallery that specialized in Latin American masters. The director invited me to present a two-person exhibition in October. Brewster exhibited well-known artists such as Frida Kahlo, Rufino Tamayo, Francisco Toledo, and Diego Rivera. How thrilling to meet fellow gallery artist, Leonora Carrington, at my opening!
After that I began spending more time in New York. I soon found a sixth-floor walkup and a studio and moved here in 1997. Considering how drastically this city has changed, I feel fortunate to still be working in the same studio today. (I moved into an apartment with an elevator in 2001).
In the intervening years, I have worked with a few dozen galleries and exhibited in art fairs in the United States, Europe, and Asia. For some time I have employed two assistants who manage my social media accounts. I have been a blogger since 2012 and now have 213,000 subscribers. In 2023 I was the subject of an award-winning documentary, “Barbara Rachko: True Grit,” which had its world premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival. Last year I was recruited by a talented artists’ agent in Mumbai, India. He is working extremely hard at expanding my career internationally. In June we are presenting a group exhibition in Paris.
As I reflect on all of this, one takeaway is, “It pays to be stubborn and hard-working.” When you truly love what you do, it’s not difficult to give it everything you’ve got and to keep going regardless of what obstacles are thrown in your way. You just never know what amazing thing will happen next!
Gwen Gunter, Atlanta, GA
In the past, I had very little luck with dealers—the work just sat in the back room—but I get the art out there by answering open calls, which I find on Call for Entry, Instagram, even from museums that send out open calls. At least once a month I will scour new information about what’s coming up. Sometimes a gallery will pop up on Artsy or Blouin Artinfo, and there are a number of artist-run galleries in New York, which offer shows juried by people connected with museums or art publications. Prince Street Gallery and Atlantic Gallery in New York are two I’ve targeted, and I just found out about Smack Mellon in Brooklyn, which takes applications for shows twice a year.
Museums that have open calls include Atlanta MoCA in Georgia, the LaGrange Museum in LaGrange, GA, and the Alexandria Museum in Alexandria, FL. You never know where you might hit.
About ten years ago, I connected with Deljou, a fine-art publisher in Atlanta. Another is called Studio EL in San Francisco, which just licensed 15 pieces of art and sells reproductions of artists’ works to hospitals, health-care organizations, and corporate and residential markets. You’re not going to get rich, but you might get royalties now and then.
These organizations buy the rights, and the contract is typically for two or three years. They might do reproductions on giclée, metal, wood, plexiglass.
Until two years ago, I had given up on contacting galleries and was showing through competitions and open calls across the country. Then out of the blue, Alan Avery of the Alan Avery Art Company, the oldest gallery in Atlanta, contacted me and asked to see work. I had a solo show there a year ago.
Using all these different resources for the first few decades of my career felt a lot more pro-active. I often had no idea where pieces would end up, but I love what I do, and I feel grateful that I can do it.
I have profiled or written about all these artists on the original Vasari21 site. Just use the search function to find out more and see the kind of work they do. AL
To be honest, the whole idea of "self promotion" as a kind of genre can also be a kind of art killing. We do it anyway in some form or another.
I know you are trying to help
Enjoyed very much reading about the process and progress in self "promotion".