Managed Artwork Managing the Art World

Where did you place that piece? Is it out on loan? On the wall? In a bin? Where? Use the location field to track the location of a piece of artwork in and out of the gallery. Never lose track of artwork.

If you find yourself in the Charleston area, stop by and see our friends at Martin Gallery. Swing over to their website to take a virtual tour of the space. 

Gathering pieces from multiple artists and all the details can be daunting. Make sure to have a quality art gallery management software in place to handle every detail seamlessly.

Group exhibitions are a gallery staple during the winter months. Here are some tips to make your upcoming group show profitable and manageable.

Tip 1: Gather Pieces that Fit a Theme

By creating a theme for the exhibition, this will give the show a cohesive feel to buyers. Here are some themes we’ve seen from Managed Artwork Gallery Clients in recent years.

   Art of Winter

   Spotlight on Women

   Contemporary Regionalism

   Landscape

   Small Works

   Holiday Sale

Tip 2: Marketing and Promotion

With a group exhibition the gallery can capitalize on email list of the artists and previous buyers of the artist. Instead of marketing just one artist, you have a large body of artists to promote. While this does lead to more work, the extra time will convert to promising sales. Take time to plan your strategy months ahead of time. Here is a checklist of marketing components to consider:

   Press Release

   Postcards

   Bulk Email Schedule(1 month before, 2 weeks prior, week before and week of)

   Social Media Strategy

   Website Promotion, Exhibition page, setting up ecommerce

   Catalogue online or print

   Local event calendars

Tip 3: Execution

Gathering pieces from multiple artists and all the details can be daunting. Make sure to have a quality art gallery management software in place to handle every detail seamlessly.

The holiday season is upon us. For small businesses like galleries, this can be the most profitable time of year. Art is personal, special and everlasting making it the perfect gift for buyers’ loved ones. We’ve provided some ideas to help your art gallery grab the attention of buyers.

Offer Special Holiday Items

Whether you work with your artists and request lower price point pieces or bring in giftables such as ornaments, ceramics, glass and prints from local artists make sure you have a variety of inventory to offer your clientele. By supporting local artists, your buyers will notice your support of the community and beyond.

Website Updates

There are a few things you can do to leverage your website during the holidays. Starting in November, update your website homepage to feature the new holiday items for sale. In conjunction with this, make your website is ecommerce friendly to allow buyer to purchase items directly online. Even create a unique gift page to display and sell all your giftable items. If your website has none of these capabilities, consider upgrading your website with Managed Artwork, giving you complete control over your website and more.

Ecommerce GIF

Get Social! Don’t forget the utilize the most popular form of communication and be consistent on social media throughout the season. Make events for holiday open houses, group shows, art sales, or any other event you might have in the gallery. Update your cover photo on Facebook to reflect the holiday look on your website. Post gift options a few times a week while promoting the ecommerce option to get more visitors to your website to buy. Take advantage of the power of Instagram as well by following a similar strategy.

Tride and true bulk emails never disappoint. This is the best way to promote your holiday items to your current contact list. Give your list powerful content such as special offers and gift ideas. Send a few of these during November and December and emphasize how easy it is to buy from your gallery.

Art World Insider Tip of the Week: My Collection

Looking for new ways to interact with buyers on your website? With websites using Managed Artworks intuitive database your buyers can set aside their favorite works of art at your website and submit the list to you for review. Take it one step further and suggest works back to them that they might not have seen on the website.

As the art world prepares for the grueling schedule of art fairs this fall here are some tips to keep you on track.

Take your inventory on the go with the Gallery Assistant iPad app. The app works with the email function of your iPad, allowing you to easily send buyers details about the artwork they are interested in.

Before going to the fair, create and print price lists of artwork displaying in your booth to hand out. Even create labels for all the artwork you bring. At the fair, create and send invoices on the fly. Easily generate tearsheets with full size images and artwork details to send to collectors you meet.

Keep track of all new contacts with the Artwork Manager-TM contact relationship management tools. Set reminders for yourself and others for when you get back from the fair to follow up with any new connections you have made.

The relationship between gallery and artist can be tricky. So many details come into play: promotion, exhibitions, pricing and commissions, discounts, insurance, payday, sales by the artist and so much more. With all this, it is important to have a document in place defining the terms of representation to protect the interests of both parties.

Now that you know how important consignment agreements are, how can you easily track all this information? With the Artwork ManagerTM you can create then print, mail and archive solid consignment agreements for all your artists/consignors effortlessly.

HERE’S HOW IT WORKS

Apply Settings for each consignor

   Commission (%)

   Max. Discount (%)

   Insure Percent (%)

   Pay Day

   Type: Artist or Consignor

   Consignors VAT: Artist/Consignor specific VAT according to their country's authorities.

   Pack/Ship - To/From: YES or NO

   Start Date

   End Date

   Internal Notes

These settings are used throughout the Artwork Manager and directly relate to sales that are made. When an artwork is sold, a commission is calculated based on the settings in the Consignment Agreement.

We include a fairly standard yet comprehensive default legal document that defines your mutual understandings with the Consignor. The beauty in the settings are automatically embedded into nicely worded terms. These terms may be edited if you see fit, allowing you have a unique agreement for every Consignor if you choose to do so. Lastly, you will choose what artworks you want to be covered by this agreement.

Learn more about Consignment Agreements at www.managedartwork.com where you can read about these tools and schedule a demo to see it in action.

Today in Art History: March 1, 1911, American Industrialist Henry Clay Frick ( http://www.frick.org/ ) acquired Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velasquez's Portrait of King Philip IV. Frick went on to leave his collection of artwork available for public view in form of the Frick Collection in New York City.

On This Day in Art History: November 23, 1993. Rachel Whiteread of the UK won both the £20,000 Turner Prize award for best British modern artist and the £40,000 K Foundation art award for the worst artist of the year.

'Cabaret' opens its original Broadway production, directed by Harold Prince and choreographed by Ron Field, at the Broadhurst Theatre in NYC, eventually transferring to the Imperial and then to Broadway before finally completing its 1,165-performance run. The cast included Jill Haworth as Sally, Bert Convy as Cliff, Lotte Lenya as Fräulein Schneider, Jack Gilford as Herr Schultz, Joel Grey as the Emcee, Edward Winter as Ernst and Peg Murray as Fräulein Kost. Replacements later in the run included Anita Gillette and Melissa Hart as Sally, Ken Kercheval and Larry Kert as Cliff, and Martin Ross as the Emcee.

On This Day in Art History; Singer Kate Smith performs Irving Berlin’s 1918 tune, “God Bless America” 

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