What's the one thing you wish you'd put in writing before the first show?
First gallery I was with, I was young and glad to be there. Signed everything they put in front of me. Two years in I found out they'd been holding back 20% of the framing, shipping and insurance costs I was supposed to be paying direct. Nothing criminal, just buried in a contract I never fully read. My fault as much as theirs. I was too eager to look like I knew what I was doing.
These days I put everything in writing before anything hangs. Who pays for the opening, who covers shipping, what happens if a piece sells in the first week versus the last. Even then they'll try things on.
What's the clause or agreement you wish you'd nailed down before your first show? I'd be curious what bites people most.
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The one thing I'd add to every list here: what happens to the work that doesn't sell. The first gallery I worked with kept everything I left with them for three years, and when I asked for pieces back, there was a fee per item to "deinstall and pack." Nobody had ever said a word about it. I didn't have the money for all of them, so some pieces stayed there long after I'd stopped trusting the place.
I'm a slow maker. Each print takes sunlight and patience, so a piece sitting in storage somewhere costs me something real. Now I write it in from the start: how long they keep the work, who pays to get it back, what happens if they close or change hands. It feels small and unglamorous next to the opening night questions, but it's the part that protects the work itself.
Oh this hurts to read because I recognize the feeling. I mostly do pastels, which are the opposite problem in a way, they're fragile and they don't travel well, so I was terrified of the gallery damaging them. But I never thought about the ones that just sit there.
The "deinstall and pack" fee, that's such a specific kind of gut punch. They make you feel like the work was the problem, like it's your fault for leaving it there.
I wonder though, the unsold pieces, did you ever get them back in the end? And how do you word it now, the part about how long they keep the work? I'm writing my next contract and I keep finding new holes in it every time someone shares a story like this. There's always another thing you didn't know to ask about.
Pastels are a different animal, you're right. Nobody worries about the gallery scratching a two-ton granite slab, but I get why you'd sweat every one of those. Fragile work makes you careful in ways the rest of us don't have to be.
Did I get them back? Some. The ones that sold eventually, sure. The ones that didn't, I had to go in person and load them out myself, and one of the two pieces I'd left there came back with a chip in the corner that wasn't there when I dropped it off. They claimed it happened in transit. I don't believe it, but I'd signed away my right to prove otherwise.
Now I write it plain. "Six months. After that, gallery covers insured storage and I take the work back at my cost, deinstall included." No fee on my own pieces. I also have a line that says if they want to keep a piece past the term, they buy it at 60% of list or it comes home. That one got me a sale I didn't expect, actually.
The trick is keeping it simple enough that a lawyer reads it in one pass. Two clauses, not a page. They can't hide much in two clauses.
That deinstall fee is a classic. I've seen that. They act like it's a kindness that they stored the work at all, then charge you to take your own pieces back. Three years is a long time to hold on to something that's yours.
You're right that a slow maker feels that differently. Stone sits fine. A print that's part of an edition is a different thing entirely, that's your livelihood sitting in a back room while someone else decides when you can have it back.
Writing in the retrieval terms is smart. I'd add this: put a time limit on it, but make sure it's tied to something they actually have to do, not just a date. "Gallery will return unsold work within 60 days of written request, at gallery's expense." Don't leave any room for a fee to sneak in through the back door. They'll find it if it's there.