The gallery sale where I netted less than the framer
I sold a piece last year through a gallery in Berlin. Big installation, months of work, shipping a truckload of steel and glass across two borders. The collector paid 18,000 euros.
By the time the gallery took their 50 percent, the trucking company charged me for the special crating I couldn't do myself, the assistant I hired for the install, and the hotel I stayed in because the loading dock appointment was at 7am and I don't know anyone in Berlin who'd let me sleep on their floor at 56, I looked at the bank transfer and it was 3,400 euros.
The framer who built the crate made more than I did. I know because I asked him what he charged. He told me. Nice guy. He earned it.
I'm not telling this as a sob story. I agreed to the terms. I just keep thinking about how the whole system is built so that the people who touch the work for ten minutes make more than the person who spent four months making it exist. And we all nod and say that's how it works. But it's funny, no. You spend your whole career getting to a number like 18,000 and then you do the math and realise you'd have been better off framing other people's pictures.
4
6commentsSaveFollow threadShare
Honestly this is the kind of thing nobody talks about in art school and it drives me crazy. I'm still at the stage where selling through a gallery feels like a distant dream but when I hear numbers like this I'm like... what's even the point if they take half AND you're fronting all the costs?? The framer making more than you is just insult to injury honestly 😭
I guess my question is, knowing what you know now, would you do it again through a gallery or would you try to sell direct next time? I feel like there's gotta be a middle ground somewhere but I don't know what it looks like yet.
God, that framer detail is brutal. I sell at local fairs so my overhead is basically "did I need a new tube of titanium white" but I've had enough small tastes of that math to get why it makes you question the whole thing.
I'm not in your shoes so take this with a grain of salt, but I've watched enough artists in my local group navigate this. Some of them do a hybrid thing, they'll keep a smaller gallery relationship for the credibility and the collectors who actually walk through doors, but they also build up an email list and do direct sales for the stuff that's easier to ship or smaller scale. Not every piece has to go through the gallery, you know? Keep the arrangement but don't give them everything.
Anyway I'm still at the "dreaming about a gallery" stage too so I'm mostly just here reading and learning with you 😅
The hybrid thing works if you can split your practice that way. Some work is built to travel through a gallery, some isn't. I know artists who do it well, keep the big stuff for the institutions, sell the drawings and studies direct. Keeps the lights on and the soul mostly intact.
For me the trouble is my work doesn't scale down. I can't make a small version of a room. So I'm stuck with the full circus every time. But you're right to think about it now, before you're in deep. The ones who figure out the money early last longer.
Art school won't tell you any of it. They're selling a dream, not a spreadsheet.
Would I do it again? Yes, but not the same way. The gallery got me the collector, I don't have that door. What I'd change is the contract. Ask for a production budget on top of your split, or a materials advance against the sale. Some galleries will do it if you ask. Most won't offer.
Direct sales are their own headache. You trade the 50 percent for the full cost of building and keeping your own relationships with collectors. Different work, same exhaustion.
Middle ground I've seen work: sell smaller things yourself, let the gallery handle the big ones. Keeps you alive and keeps the door open.