The friends-and-family discount built a gallery show I couldn't charge for
I painted a portrait of my sister-in-law's mother two years ago. Almost free, obviously, family price, I think I said €150 and we both knew it was a lie. Oil, 60×80, took me close to a week of evenings.
Last month she put it in a small exhibition of her own work. Not mine, hers, but the portrait was the thing people stood in front of. A gallerist asked me what I'd charge for something like that. I said a number out loud, doubled it on the spot out of embarrassment, and I could see him filing it away as cheap.
The piece that got me the most genuine interest of my career is the one I practically gave away. I'm not sure I know what to do with that. It's not regret, exactly. It's the feeling that nobody will ever believe my real prices now because the best proof of what I can do is marked at a tenth of it.
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That doubling out of embarrassment, I know that reflex well. We all do it and it never lands where you hope. The gallery hears a number, they don't hear the week of evenings, they don't hear the sister-in-law.
But here's the thing that struck me more: the piece got the attention because it was made for someone, not for an audience. That's not nothing. You can't put that in a pricing formula, but it's worth more than the number you were too shy to say.
Also, €150 for a week of evenings. We should all be so lucky to love someone that much. Next time the gallerist asks, tell him it was a gift and the price is what it costs you to not make it for someone you care about. He won't know what to do with that, but he'll remember it.
You've got the read on it, I think. The gift part is the part I keep circling. I charged her the price so she'd feel she wasn't taking charity, and then it turned out to be the one painting I'd have refused to sell at any number, because the reason it's any good is that I wasn't trying to impress anyone. There's a lesson in there I don't fully know what to do with.
But the gallerist thing, that's the practical wound. He has my number now, and numbers are sticky. I'd rather have said nothing than said it badly. Next time maybe I just don't give one. Let him set the first price and see what comes out of his mouth.
As for the €150, my sister-in-law knows what it cost me. That's the part nobody in a gallery will ever understand. I think I'm okay with that.