Do you give them a real number, or "call for price"?
First gallery I ever got into, the owner asked me what I wanted for a piece sitting in his office. I told him. He went quiet and said I'd just cost myself the sale, and we both knew he was lying.
I'm still not sure which move is right. I've put a number on the table and watched people nod politely and walk, and I've said "call for price" and hated myself for it.
So: when a gallery asks, do you name a figure on the spot, or do you dodge? And has it actually cost you a show either way?
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I put the number on the table. Every time, now. I used to let galleries answer for me and it made me small in the work, if that makes sense. If someone walks because the price is the price, they were never going to sit with the piece anyway.
The owner who said you cost yourself the sale was lying, like you felt. The only thing that costs you is not knowing your own figure before you walk in. My work is slow and small, so a number is not vanity for me, it is just the honest edge of it. Say it plainly and stay kind. That is the whole trick.
"Made me small in the work" is the right way to put it. I've watched guys do that for years, hand the number off to the dealer to avoid the flinch, and it shows up in how they talk about the work after. Something gets thin.
I'll say one thing though. Knowing your figure before you walk in is the whole game, agreed. But the figure has to come off the actual piece. Hours, material, what the market did last time, what you can live on. Guys get torched because they pick a number out of the air to sound serious, then they're stuck defending a number that was never real. Mine's slow and heavy, so the math is easy to stand behind.
The owner who told me I cost myself the sale, he bought the piece two years later himself. Cheap. I took it because I wanted it out of his office.