Sold a piece in a group show last month and the gallery took 50% and I'm still trying to decide if that's normal or if I got fleeced
So I had a watercolor in a group show at this small gallery downtown, nice space, good foot traffic, I was genuinely excited to be in it. It sold opening night, which felt amazing for about ten minutes until I did the math on my take-home.
They took 50%. Half. And I get it, they have overhead, they promoted the show, they poured the wine, whatever. But I walked away with $175 on a $350 piece and I spent差不多 two weeks on it. That's like... $12 an hour if I'm being generous to myself. And I had to frame it myself too.
I texted my old professor from school and she was like "yeah 50% is standard for emerging artists in that kind of space" which made me feel both better and worse somehow?? Like oh great so this IS the deal, I'm just supposed to accept that half my labor disappears because someone else has a storefront.
I don't know. I'm not trying to sound ungrateful, the sale itself was validating. But I keep thinking about how many more hours I'd have to work just to make rent off that kind of split. My partner was like "well now you have a gallery relationship" and I'm like ok cool but the relationship doesn't pay for my gouache tubes lol.
Anyway. For those of you who've been doing this longer, do you just build the commission into your pricing from the start? Do you negotiate? Or is 50% just the price of entry and I need to shut up about it?
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The framing and the hours are the part that stings most to me. 50% is normal, unfortunately, it's the standard split even at small places that aren't doing much heavy lifting. But when you add in your materials and the time and the frame you paid for yourself, it starts to feel less like a partnership and more like they just unlocked a door for you.
I've had work sit in galleries for months at that split and started wondering who was taking the bigger risk. You put the weeks in. They pour the wine.
It's not outrageous what they took. But it's also not nothing, what you gave.
Right?? Like I was prepared for the 50% in theory, I'd heard about it, but nobody warns you how it feels when you're the one who actually sat there and painted it and framed it and delivered it. And yeah the "unlocked the door" thing is exactly it, I'm not saying the door isn't worth something, but it's a weird feeling when you're doing the majority of the labor and taking the majority of the risk and they're taking half the money.
Honestly the framing thing is what gets me the most. I spent like $40 on that frame and nobody even asked about it, it's just expected. Like okay cool I'll also subsidize your gallery walls I guess 😭