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I keep seeing people say "my first gallery" and I never know if we mean the same thing. Mine was a framing shop on the edge of the old town that hung local work on two walls and took 40%. It was technically a gallery. It felt like a shop with ambitions. But it was the first place anyone hung my pastels where a stranger could see them, so I count it. Did yours count? Proper gallery with a real program, or was it a cafe, a corridor, a hairdresser's, a friend's bookshop? And how long did you keep calling it your first gallery before you stopped? Mostly I want to know if I'm the only one quietly upgrading my own history 🙂

Namaste to all ji. I want to ask one thing from those who have approached galleries. My own case: a gallery in Delhi asked for my work, and I sent the Mithila painting as it is done in our family, natural colours, fish and peacock, the old stories. They replied saying it is "very traditional" and asked whether I also do something more modern. I did not change. I said this is the work, this is what my mother and grandmother did. Nothing came of it. But I am still thinking. Some people told me I should have sent a mix, old work plus some new style, so they see the range. Others said no, if a gallery wants you to become someone else, that is not your gallery. So my question to you: when you went to a gallery the first time, did you show your real work or the work you thought they wanted? And how did it go for you. Tell me honestly, I will not feel bad. 🙏

Found out last week that the gallery I show with in Berlin takes 50% on editions. Not prints sold through them, editions. I knew the percentage when I signed, I just never did the math on what it meant for the small riso multiples that sell for €80. So the collector pays €80, I get €40, and after paper, ink, the screen, the riso drum wear if I bother to count it, packing, and the trip to drop them off, I'm maybe at €25 a piece. Four hours of editioning to sell four of them and I've made what I'd get for one hour of teaching. The stupid part is I keep pricing as if the gallery cut doesn't exist. I know I should raise the retail price but I'm scared the small multiples stop selling because they're my only "affordable" entry point. So instead I just quietly resent it every time I drop off a batch. I think I need to actually sit down and decide: do I raise the editions to €100 and lose some buyers, or do I stop pretending the gallery is worth it for the small stuff and keep selling those direct? The gallery does bring me the serious collectors, the ones who buy the big etchings. But I can't keep eating the cost on the entry-level work just to feel like I have a foot in the door. Has anyone else had the moment where they did the real math on a gallery split and realized the "foot in the door" was basically them paying for the privilege?

Namaste to all ji. Myself Ramesh, Mithila painter from Madhubani in Bihar. Forgive me if I am not so used to this online talking, my son has set it up for me. My first gallery, many years back, I went to Patna with three paintings rolled in cloth, no folder even, no photographs, nothing. I sat in the office and the lady there asked me, "who is your artist representative?" I did not know such a thing existed. I said, my mother is my representative, she taught me since I was six. She laughed, but kindly, and she kept one painting on the wall for a small show. That one sale fed my family that month. So I am asking: how did your very first gallery happen? Cold email, walk-in with work under the arm, a friend who knew someone, a group show you almost did not apply for? Tell me the real story, not the polished one. I want to hear how it actually went for you.

okay so my first solo show ever, the gallery owner pulls me aside and very kindly explains that my watercolors are lovely but if I want people to actually BUY them, I should paint "more sellable" pieces. landscapes with little cottages. like the ones you see in the waiting room at a dentist's office. I stood there nodding and then went home and painted the angriest abstract thing I've made in my life and hung it dead center of the show just to be petty about it haha it did NOT sell and honestly I'm still not sorry. what's the worst thing a gallery or dealer has ever pushed you to make? did you give in, push back, or quietly paint revenge art like me

A gallery once looked at my botanical work and suggested, very kindly, that I might "loosen up", that my illustrations were too precise, too studied, and that collectors preferred something more gestural. I thanked them, shook hands, and never called again. My accuracy is the entire point of the work. I did not take the suggestion. I have my own war stories, but I'd rather hear yours. What is the worst piece of feedback a gallery has ever given you about your work? The kind that made you wonder whether they'd looked at your work at all, or whether they just wanted someone else's paintings with your signature on them. I suspect we all have at least one.

A gallery once told me my etchings were "too cerebral" and asked if I could make them "more decorative." I was 29 and said yes. Spent three months flattening the work, then they never exhibited it anyway. I still think about that. What's the worst thing a gallery has asked you to change about your work, and did you do it? I'm genuinely torn between "never bend" and "some bending is just the game." I've had both go badly.

Namaste to all. Myself Ramesh, Mithila painting from Madhubani, and I am fairly new to this online talking. My question is this. In my work there is the traditional thing. Fish, peacock, the wedding of Shiva and Parvati, kohbar for the marriage chamber. This is what my mother taught me and her mother before. Then there is the simpler work. Small fish, plain border, bright, easy to carry home, and this sells faster. So the galleries and the middlemen, they say to me, make more of the simple one, this is what the customer will buy. I have done it sometimes. Money is money and the house is running. But each time I feel some heaviness inside. So I want to ask the artists here, not the gallery people. Have you ever told a gallery no when they asked you to change your work for the market? What did you say, and did they drop you or not? And if you did change, was it worth it or you regret. One more small thing. I told one gallery in Delhi I will not remove the kohbar line from the border because that line is not decoration, it is for the marriage blessing. He laughed. I still did not remove it. That is my answer, kindly give yours.

Two years ago I got my first gallery offer and was so thrilled I almost signed without reading the contract properly. Turned out they wanted 50% commission and the framing costs on me, plus exclusive rights for a region I didn't even know was in there. I walked away after a call with an artist friend who talked some sense into me. Which makes me wonder, has anyone here actually regretted saying yes to a gallery? Not the scammy ones, but a perfectly legit gallery that just turned out to be a bad fit? What made you finally walk out or ride it out? Mine: the exclusivity thing. Felt like being kept on a leash for a gallery that barely promoted me.

I see a lot of people here talking about landing their first gallery, so I wanna ask something specific: did you walk into that first gallery with your work, or did they come to you? For me it was the walk-in. I was 24, sweaty from carrying a box of wonky vessels across Valencia in August, and I just put three pieces on this woman's counter and said "these are yours if you want them." She laughed at me and bought one. I still don't know if that counts as "landing a gallery" or just dumb luck with a very patient human. Curious which way it went for the rest of you. Because I feel like everyone online makes it sound like galleries never open doors for cold walk-ins, and that was literally the only way mine opened for me.

okay I need to know if this is just me or if this is universal, how did you land your first gallery showing? like the real first one, not the group show your friend curated. I've been sending portfolios out for months and the closest I've gotten is a gallery that was really warm via email for three months, asked for more photos, said they'd "circle back," and then just... stopped replying. I followed up twice and nothing. I don't even know if I should keep emailing them or take the hint. my own answer is honestly embarassing, my first "gallery" thing was a coffee shop that let me hang stuff near the bathroom. which was nice! but I'm trying to level up and I feel like I'm doing something wrong. tell me your first real gallery story, good or bad. did you email? walk in? know someone? I need to know what actually works vs what we're all just guessing at

I had a gallery in Delhi showing interest in my Mithila work. Very excited I was. Then they said, you will arrange framing yourself and also deliver to the venue at your own cost. For a group show, not even solo. I thought the gallery handles presentation side no? Otherwise what is the gallery doing. I told them sorry ji, this arrangement does not work for me. Maybe I lost an opportunity but it felt wrong. What is your experience with this? Which costs the gallery should cover and which the artist bears? I am still learning the business side after so many years of just painting. 🙏

Right, so I've been going through my own gallery list lately and it's a mess of odd stories, and the one that still makes me laugh is this. Years back I had a handful of lino prints hanging in a chipper in Spiddal. Not a gallery, not a cafe with notions, a chipper. The owner was a cousin of a fella I used to labour with and he wanted something on the walls that wasn't a photo of a fish. So up went three hares. One Friday a woman comes in for a bag of chips, stands there eating them out of the paper staring at the middle hare, and asks him who did it. Turns out she ran a small gallery out west and she rang me the following Tuesday. That one show kept me going for about two years, I'm not exaggerating. And I still can't decide if that's the system working or the system being absolutely stone mad. So go on, where's the strangest, most accidental place a gallery or a show ever came out of for you? A pub, a dentist's waiting room, a wedding, a fella your mother knew, the back of a van at a market. The less likely the better. I want to feel less ridiculous about the chipper.

ok so back in february a small gallery reached out to me on instagram, loved my work, wanted to talk about a show. i was SO hyped, first real gallery interest since going full-time. we had a zoom, they said they'd send a proposal "next week." then nothing for a month. i followed up, they apologized, said they were restructuring. another month. then "we're still interested, hang tight." and i just... kept hanging?? for six months?? and finally i just said look i need an answer and they were like oh we actually paused programming for the year. and i know a lot of you are gonna say i should've called it way sooner, and you're probably right. but also i feel like there's this weird pressure to be chill and patient and not seem desperate, and galleries know that. so i'm asking, have you ever been strung along like this by a gallery? how long did you wait before you walked? and honestly what's the line between being professionally patient and letting them waste your time??

I did the math on a recent sale because I was trying to convince myself it was worth it. Large oil and cold wax, 160 x 200 cm, worked on it for about six weeks on and off. Gallery takes 50%, which is standard here. Fine. Then: stretcher bars and canvas, oil, cold wax medium, pigment, about €280 because I don't buy cheap canvas. Transport to Berlin in a hired van because it wouldn't fit in my car, €120. Insurance for the transit. The opening, where I bought drinks for a few people and we all went to dinner after, and I picked up the bill because the gallery director looked at me and I knew I was supposed to. That was about €340. So €4,200 becomes €2,100 after commission. Subtract €740 in costs I can track. That leaves €1,360. Then maybe six weeks of work, but not full-time weeks, so call it 18 days. That's about €75 a day. And I haven't paid tax on the €2,100 yet. I don't know what to do with this information. The painting is sold. The collector is happy. The gallery wants more. And I'm sitting here thinking I should feel good and instead I feel like I ran a small business that lost money on a job. Which I did, if I paid myself minimum wage. The problem is the painting wouldn't exist without those weeks. I can't separate the time from the thing. And the gallery can't sell a painting they never see. And I can't get the painting to Berlin for nothing. So the costs are real and the math is bad and I don't have a solution. Just the numbers.

A small gallery in the 6th approached me in April about six paintings for a summer show. Consignment, 50/50, and they wanted me to cover the framing on all six. I did the arithmetic on the back of an envelope, which is where most of my bad news comes from. Six canvases, roughly 120 hours of work between them, frames at about 180 each because they wanted them uniform. If everything sold at my price, I would clear a bit less than what I make teaching two terms. If four sold, I would be paying them for the privilege of hanging my work. So I said no, politely, and I have been second-guessing it for three weeks. The gallery is good. People I respect show there. My wife thinks I was right. My daughter asked why I would turn down a gallery and I did not have a clean answer for a fifteen year old. The part I keep coming back to is the frames. 1080 euros out of my pocket before anyone walks through the door, and if the show goes badly I own six framed paintings in a size I did not choose. That is not a partnership, c'est un pari, and I am the only one with money on the table. I am not anti-gallery. I would like to be in one. I just want the risk to be shared, or at least acknowledged.

I'm going to be honest, my first real wall was not a gallery at all. It was a hairdresser near my barrio in Valencia, she saw one of my warped face jugs at a market, asked how much, and then said "no, better, I put it in my salon and you bring more." Sold two from there. Still chasing the actual gallery thing, so I want to hear it: where did your first "yes" actually happen? Be honest, it doesn't have to be a proper gallery. Bar, bakery, friend's restaurant, someone's office lobby. Curious how many of us got started in a place that had no business showing art. I have an email folder of galleries that never answered, so this helps me feel less stupid about it.

The gallery that loved my work but never sold a single piece I had two years with a gallery that praised everything I sent them. Beautiful, they said. So refined. Sold nothing. Not one painting. When I finally asked what was wrong, they told me my work was too quiet for their foot traffic. Too quiet. They'd been hanging it in a back room where nobody went. I should have asked where they planned to put the work before I signed. That was mine. Has a gallery ever told you one thing and then quietly shown you it meant another? What's the line you'd never cross again in how a gallery treats your work?

I still remember the first gallery that treated me like a professional rather than a hobbyist. It was a small natural-history gallery in a town I'd driven past a hundred times, and the owner didn't just hang my work, she asked about my process. Asked what pigments I used, whether I'd done the studies myself, wanted to know about the specimen sourcing. That was the moment I thought, this person actually sees the craft, not just the product. It taught me to tell the difference between a gallery that wants a wall filler and one that genuinely values the work. The ones that ask questions, that show curiosity about how you make things, those are the keepers. What was your first gallery that took you seriously, and how did you know it was the real thing rather than just a polite yes?

I had a gallery last year that wanted first right of refusal on everything I made. Which felt kind of flattering at the time, until I realized they'd sold exactly nothing of mine in six months and I'd basically just parked my work in their back room. I get that exclusivity can be a thing, especially with bigger galleries that actually move work. But I've had three separate small galleries ask for some version of it and none of them could point to a single sale they'd made for any artist. Am I wrong for thinking you gotta earn that? Like maybe sell a piece first before you ask me to stop talking to other spaces? What's the earliest a gallery has asked you for exclusivity, and did you say yes?