How to Sell Art Without a Gallery | Find Art Collectors
You can sell your art without a gallery. Plenty of artists do it every day. You’ll need to meet people who want to live with your work, can afford it and trust you enough to buy it. Then you’ll need to stay in touch. That’s where a lot of artists stop. They’ve sent the portfolio. Now they wait.
I’m Annelise Stern, an artist agent, curator, collector and founder of NANA. I mention collecting because sometimes I’m the person asking the price. You learn quite a bit on that side of the conversation.
Selling art independently: exhibiting is not the same as representation
There’s a misunderstanding I come across quite often: an artist has taken part in a gallery exhibition and thinks they have a gallery. Someone gave them a stretch of wall for three weeks. It may have been a very good experience. But nobody necessarily agreed to champion their work for the rest of the year, follow up with visitors or find new buyers.
Exhibiting with a gallery and being represented by one are two different things.
If you already work with a gallery, your direct sales need to respect whatever you’ve agreed together. If nobody represents you, somebody will have to take responsibility for meeting your future collectors. At the beginning, that somebody is usually you.
Where can you find your first art collectors?
An art advisor once gave me some advice I thought was rather thin. Essentially: “Spend time with people who have money. Eventually, they’ll buy.” I found that reductive. I still don’t think it’s enough. But the longer I worked, the more I had to admit she had a point. You can spend your entire life surrounded by people who sincerely love your work and cannot afford to buy it. That’s nobody’s fault. But if you want to sell a piece for €4,000, at some point you’ll need to meet someone who can spend €4,000 on art. And who would rather have yours.
Use LinkedIn to tell people about your life as an artist. If I had to start again without a network, I’d begin with LinkedIn. It’s an approach I particularly recommend if you’re introverted. I still see relatively few artists genuinely talking about their practice there, and I think there’s room for more. Not by posting a photograph with “Hello, here’s my latest creation.” The reader has seen the photograph. Tell them something else. Why did you spend three weeks on that face? What bothered you so much about that colour that you started over? Where did this habit of photographing houses at night come from? Tell people about your life as an artist. On the other side of the screen is someone who may have just spent two hours in a meeting discussing a document nobody had read. Your work might brighten their day. Your way of looking at things might interest them. But you have to let them see some of it. You don’t have to tell them about your divorce. You can tell them why you paint.
If you’re sociable, live in Paris, London or New York and enjoy going out, go out. Go to exhibition openings, but also to dinners, fashion events and parties. Professional relationships sometimes begin with a conversation that has nothing professional about it.
If you live far from those opportunities, your online presence matters more. I know some artists hate social media. But you’ll have to choose some way of becoming visible. Buyers don’t fall out of the sky.
How do you turn interest in your art into a sale?
Someone might discover your work on LinkedIn, visit your website, follow you for months and eventually come to your studio. You may have forgotten the first time they responded to a post. In the meantime, they’ve begun to get to know you. That’s why I distinguish between where people discover an artist and the circumstances in which they buy. Those things don’t necessarily happen in the same place, or in the same week.
In my experience, a great deal happens around a table, particularly in France. Dinner with a few collectors. Brunch. A studio visit where nobody checks their watch every three minutes. You can invite four people. You don’t need to hire a venue, book a caterer and spend the next three days wondering how to pay for it all. What matters is having room to talk. At the dinners I’ve organised, the artists who sold best weren’t always the ones with the strongest CVs. Nor were they necessarily the ones who explained their work most impressively. They were often the ones who took an interest in the guests. It sounds almost disappointing, it’s so simple. But they listened to the answers to their questions. They wanted to know the person. A conversation developed, and their work found a place in it. You can talk at length about your technique without ever letting the other person in. Or you can explain what brought you to a subject and discover that they’ve been thinking about it for years, for entirely different reasons. You have to give them time to tell you.
What should you send someone who is interested in an artwork?
After the meeting, be precise. Someone can be moved by your work and still forget its dimensions. That doesn’t mean they weren’t listening.
Prepare an artwork information sheet with:
Accurate photographs, including one that gives a sense of scale.
The title, year, medium and support.
Dimensions and framing details.
The edition size and individual edition number, where applicable.
The price, currency and availability.
A few sentences about the work.
You can send it after a studio visit or in response to an online enquiry.
Here’s a fictional example to give you a sense of the tone:
Hi Camille,As promised, here are the photographs of the piece we looked at on Saturday. It measures 60 × 80 cm and is priced at €2,400, including the frame. I can confirm the shipping cost once I have your delivery address. I enjoyed our conversation about the series. If you’d like to come back and see it at the studio, you’d be very welcome.
They have the information. They know they can come back. You can leave it there.
Should artists display their prices?
For works priced below €5,000, I generally favour displaying prices. I may keep certain major pieces or larger works available on enquiry. And when someone asks the price, I suggest telling them. It should be a fairly short sentence. Yet some artists manage to fit their financial difficulties, their doubts and a discount nobody asked for into it. I understand the discomfort. If you’re struggling to pay the rent, asking several thousand euros can feel extravagant. But the person in front of you isn’t living on your budget. Let them hear the price before deciding on their behalf that it’s too high.
As a collector, I’m put off by an artist who doesn’t seem to believe in their own price, or who pretends not to want to sell. I’m no longer quite sure what we’re doing there. A very low price can make me hesitate, too. I start wondering how the artist regards their work, how they arrived at that figure and whether there’s any consistency behind it. Obviously, that doesn’t mean raising your prices automatically makes your work more desirable.
Should you offer a collector a discount? My own approach is fairly clear: I generally don’t offer discounts on sales below roughly €2,500 - €3,000. For a work priced around €5,000 - €6,000, I’ll often agree to 10% if the buyer asks. That’s how I work. You don’t have to adopt the same approach. A discount is a decision, not an obligation.
How do you follow up with a potential art buyer?
Someone asked for a price, then went quiet. You can get back in touch. Personally, I’ll often send an invitation: to an event I’m organising, or an exhibition we might visit together. I’d rather create an opportunity to see someone again than bring up the same question out of the blue.
For example:
Hi Inès,I’m having a few people over to the studio next Sunday for brunch and a look at the new work. I thought of you after our conversation about the series. It would be lovely to see you if you’re free.
Of course, Inès should be able to eat her brunch without feeling obliged to buy a painting. Between meetings, a newsletter lets you stay in touch with people who have chosen to hear from you. A project you’re researching. An exhibition. A piece that gave you trouble.
Your practice is alive. There’s more to write about than a list of what’s still for sale.
How do you complete an art sale and keep collectors coming back?
Once someone decides to buy, agree on the details. Is the frame included? Who pays for shipping? When should the work arrive? What documents will you provide? For international deliveries, who is responsible for any import charges? Confirm everything in writing. A warm relationship and clear terms go perfectly well together. The prices in this article are in euros. If you’re selling internationally to a buyer in the UK, the United States or Canada, for example make the billing currency and any additional costs clear. Everyone should understand the same arrangement before the work is shipped. Once it arrives, check in.
I also write my clients a little note. By hand. Some probably think nothing of it. Others are so touched that it changes the relationship. We sometimes look for terribly elaborate ways to build collector loyalty. Small, thoughtful gestures are a good place to start.
Where should you start this week?
Choose a few available works. Get their photographs, details and prices ready to send. Then look at your presentation materials as though you’d never met yourself. Can someone understand your work? Can they tell who you are? Would the presentation give you confidence if you were the one spending that amount? Choose somewhere to start sharing your work, and an opportunity to meet the people who respond. You’ll have something to show, a way to talk about it and a next step to offer. That’s already work. Real work.
At NANA, this is often where we begin: bringing the presentation up to the standard of the art, then developing the artist’s communication and relationships with buyers. Our four-session package and twelve-session programme over three months give us time to put things into practice, try different approaches and discuss what actually happened.
By Annelise Stern, artist agent, curator, collector and founder of NANA.
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