Jacob Lawrence

When I was in the Navy, moving every 2-3 years was part of the deal - and I hated each one!

One of the few good things about moving is when you find things that you had forgotten that you had stashed away. And a nice surprise during one of my last moves was the re-discovery of this small (7 inches x 5.5 inches) portrait of one of my professors. 

It's a portrait of Jacob Lawrence that I created back when I was a student at the University of Washington School of Art many decades ago.

He is/was of one of the most influential and courageous American artists who's never been given a show at the National Gallery of Art  -- although the Phillips Collection did step up to the challenge of a major Washington, DC area art museum actually focusing on a great artist who just also happened to be an African-American, and put up a great exhibition a few years ago.

On Referral Commissions

Artists and art dealers should always remember this rule (especially in a small town such as the Greater DC area is): You reap what you sow. 

A few years ago, a well-known DMV area curator emailed me to let me know that she had referred to me a collector who was looking for figurative drawings. 

The usual referral commission in the business of art is 25%, so I emailed her back and asked to verify that percentage and she did. The collector then came to my studio (a.k.a. the laundry room of my house) and bought a couple of drawings, and I immediately sent the curator a check for her commission. 

She then emailed me back a few days later and thanked me for my promptness.

Conversely, a while back a couple of different curators approached me asking for help in finding some artists for a specific acquisition project. I spent some time with each one of them, and then gave them a list of artists, as well as the artists' contact information. 

I then contacted those artists and/or their gallery dealer, and told them that I was referring curator so-and-so to them in order for the curator to view and possibly purchase work from them. 

There were about 15-20 artists that I referred and who were then contacted by the curators of these two separate projects. 

Some of the artists are represented by us, and thus they know (because our contract is very clear on that issue) what a referral commission is. Several of the other artists (whom are not represented by us, or in some cases by any other gallery) emailed me to thank me for the referral, and subsequently even a few of them emailed me to let me know that the curators had purchased artwork. 

Some never even emailed or contacted me to thank me for the referral, but most did. So far only one of those artists has asked what our referral commission is, and I am sure that if/when a sale is made, that the gallery will get a check for that commission from that one artist. 

Let's see what happens with the rest of them... you reap what you sow.

Lest we forget




"Studio View, 9/11"
Oil on Canvas c. 9/11/2001 by David FeBland

Artists and Art Fairs

Years and years ago I related how now almost two decades ago, the founders and organizer of a European art fair called Art Basel (which of course, takes place in Basel, Switzerland), decided to try an American version of their successful European model and started an art fair in the Miami Beach Convention Center and they called it Art Basel Miami Beach or ABMB for short. 

And I also told you how that one mega art fair spawned a few satellite art fairs in Miami at the same time and how by last year, before the Covidian Age disrupted the world, there were over two dozen art fairs going on around the Greater Miami area and art collectors, artists, gallerists, dealers, curators and all the symbiots of the art world descended on America’s coolest hot city in December and art ruled the area. 

I also pointed out, that if you are a visual artist in the 21st century and are not aware of these events, and are not trying to get there (get your artwork there is what I mean), then something really big is missing from your artistic arsenal -- unless you’re happy just painting or drawing or photographing or sculpting, etc. and could care less who sees and possibly acquires your work – if that’s the case, then skip the rest of this post and more power to you! 

But, if like some of us, the commodification of your artwork doesn’t bother you, and the fact that when you or your gallery sell one of your pieces, you feel honored and pleased that someone laid out their hard earned cash to simply add one of your creations to their home or collection, then Miami in December should be in your radar once the art fairs (hopefully) get re-started after we defeat the Covidian monster. 

But how to get there? 

The fairs are mostly gallery-based – that means that galleries are invited or juried to exhibit; not usually individual artists --- more on that later – but there are some other ways to begin to crack the Miami art fair presence, and today I want to share some of my ideas. 

Let’s start with gallery-based artists. If you are already represented by a gallery, why not discuss Miami with them? The enormous expenses associated with the art fair scene are the main reason that most art galleries do not consider them. And this is a darn good reason, as most galleries are run by the skin of their teeth and the expense associated with doing an art fair are enormous and could wreck an entire financial plan in less than a week. 

But, what does it hurt to bring it up to your gallerist? Who knows where that may lead? I am still shocked at how many art dealers are not even aware of the potential financial and exposure rewards of doing an art fair. Let me be clear: I don't want to hype this issue as a surefire path to moving artwork. 

But, this much I know… for roughly the same amount of money that a gallery spends on a full page ad in a national art magazine, you can get a small booth in some of the satellite fairs and the return on their investment has a lot more avenues than taking a chance with an ad. 

Gathering information is the key thing… bring the subject up to your dealer, and if they want more info, have them email me… the best thing for art is more art. 

How about if you are a cooperative gallery? Why not consider applying to one of the art fairs and spreading the cost of the booth amongst the exhibiting artists? A word of warning: the better fairs are juried and that means that someone gets always rejected. But the same key that allows cooperatives to survive for decades (spread the expenses) should and must be the key to give them a presence at the art fairs! And many, many co-ops are routinely showing now at art fairs in Miami, NYC, LA, London, Madrid, etc. The fact that they are returning to the fairs means that they’re having a positive experience there. 

The look and feel of the fairs is different as well. Many of them are booth fairs – that means that a white cube booth of plain white walls, ready to be drilled and hung with art, is the main model. 

Fairs such as the original Art Basel Miami Beach, Volta, Scope, Art Miami, Context, etc. are on this model. Some of the other fairs allow individual artists to apply - and as the art fairs get re-invented past Covidian Age, we may see more of that.

There are also hotel fairs. These are fairs that essentially take place in a local hotel, where the room is often emptied out and turned into a temporary gallery by the out of town galleries. The best hotel art fair in the world, according to many, is the Aqua Art Fair, held at the Aqua Hotel in Miami Beach, and having participated in it in the past, add my name to the list of people who thinks that this is the best hotel art fair on the planet. And at past Aquas I saw at least two cooperative galleries.

There are also individual artists-based fairs – after all, with 22-25 art fairs around the area, new models are apt to develop – and they have! Although not yet in Miami, the family of Superfine! Art fairs is in this model.

 A little Googlin’ of Miami art fairs (or just art fairs in general) will reveal just how many fairs there are and where. The key thought to leave you with: think art fairs and think Miami, New York, LA, Chicago... and think of a way to get there.

New uniforms

 When I was in the Navy I did dozens of illustrations for newspapers (such as The Stars & Stripes), and sketches of his shipmates and other US Navy sailors in ports in the US and European ports.  Most of these drawings and paintings were given away to his shipmates, but I also kept many of them - this one has been in storage for over 40 years and was recently found!

In the mid 80s the US Navy started a transition to switch back to the old, classical uniforms...

Art ethics in the Age of Google

Today is my birthday!

I started to sell other artists' works while I was an art student at the University of Washington in beautiful Seattle. As I've noted many times, while I was there, I sold my own works at the Pike Place Market, helped to start a Student Art Gallery, and helped to connect buyers with some of my fellow artists. Then in 1996, my then wife and I opened the Fraser Gallery in Washington, DC and subsequently a second Fraser Gallery in Bethesda, Maryland. I left the Fraser Galleries in 2006 and the same year Alida Anderson Art Projects, LLC was created in Philadelphia, and in 2009 moved to the DC region, where it remains.

In all those years I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of artists, and I can count in one hand the number of artists whom I would call unethical due to their behavior in a business gallery relationship. I thank my lucky stars for that, but I also think that a vast majority of artists, for whatever artistic genetic reason, are good people.

But we are humans, and in any "industry" there are also bad apples, and my own 2-3 bad experiences with artists, plus the dozens of anecdotal stories from other dealers all add up to the fact that just as there are some unethical galleries, there are some unethical artists.

The art fairs' paradigm gives these artsy deviants a powerful new way to use their lack of decent ethics.

As I've noted before, for your average, independently owned, commercial fine arts gallery, signing up to go to an art fair not only opens up the gallery to a whole new set of predators in the art fair scene, but also requires a significant financial environment, which, if not returned by sales at the fair, often causes a gallery to close its physical space.

Most good, ethical and decent art galleries are more often than not run by the skin of the dealers' teeths, often financed at times by Mr. Visa and Mr. Mastercard, and nearly always a labor of love on the part of the owners.

You drop $10,000 to $35,000 bucks on an art fair, and come home with little or no sales, and an empty bank account... that often means that it's lights out for the gallery. I've seen and heard this happen multiple times in the decade that I've been doing art fairs.

As I've also noted before, there is a curious after effect to art fairs; I call it the "wake effect."

A ship leaves a wake on the ocean as it moves through the water; that wake can sometimes be hundreds of miles long and discernible for days.

I define an art fair's "wake" as events that happen days, weeks, and even years after an art fair has taken place.  These events can be sales, exhibition offers, curatorial interest, press, etc. The "record" for this is currently held by DMV area artist Judith Peck, who was approached by someone who saw her work at a Miami art fair years ago and later got in touch with Peck. As a result of that fair years ago, Peck made a sale, and was also included in an art exhibition in Puerto Rico.

That's a heck of a long-assed wake!

The wake effect is important and nearly always present after a fair closes. It is part of a gallery's business prayer plan to survive the economic investments in attending an art fair.

In the Google age, the art of buying a piece of artwork has been Googlified and in any art fair one sees a huge number of people taking photographs of the art being exhibited (a tiny minority of these photographers ask permission first... cough, cough...) and then (here comes the "new" part) they take a close up of the wall text card with the name, price, media and title of the piece.

Potential collectors, art students, art teachers, other gallerists, and nearly every fair visitor from the People's Republic of China does this - it happens in every art fair.

Within minutes, a potential buyer can then Google the artist, even the piece, discover related works, other dealers representing the artist, etc. Minutes later, direct contact with the artist often begins, closely followed by emails to other dealers and/or the artist requesting price quotes and availability.

Some of this is very smart, as there are unethical art dealers who inflate artists' prices at art fairs in order to then offer huge discounts to potential buyers. An ethical buyer armed with good information is an informed buyer, and ethical art dealers have nothing to fear when dealing with them.

Approaching an artist directly undercuts the gallery's investment in the art fair and in promoting the artist's work. However, one can make the case that some novice buyers do not understand this relationship and thus their "direct" approach to the artist, rather than working with the gallery where they saw the artist's work, can be somewhat excused and attributed to a simple lack of understanding... cough, cough.

Experienced collectors who know and understand the commercial fragility of most art galleries, and how the artist-gallery relationship generally works, and yet bypass a gallery and go directly to the artist, should know better, but what can I say?

I know that this happens because I am nearly always one of the artists being exhibited at the fairs, not only by AAP, but also by multiple other art galleries in multiple art fairs. And I get emails from people who tell me that they "saw my work at the such and such art fair and love it" and want to know "what else I've got?" or what's "the best deal" that they can get on this or that piece.

I also know this because I've had our represented artists pass the emails back to us; this is what an ethical artist must do.

Our contract sets an arbitrary time limit on how long a commission exists after an art fair for a direct sale made by the artist as a result of someone seeing their work at the fair. It is all on an honor system, and I am happy to report that as far as I know, no one has ever screwed us out of a single shekel in "wake effect" sales.

I also know this because I work with multiple other galleries, some of which represent the same artists whom I work with, and they too understand the "wake" effect and let us know that someone has been requesting price quotes on an artist that we share.

Enter the unethical artist.

By know I am sure that you know where I am going... The unethical part comes when an artist is approached directly by someone, during or after an art fair, and associates the query with "seeing the art at such and such art fair..." and the artist does not pass the contact to the gallery and makes an independent and direct sale and excludes the gallery from its fair commission (pun intended).

Or the artist is suddenly approached directly by someone, during or after an art fair, and that someone is from the city/area where the fair is being/was held. And the artist does not pass the contact to the gallery and makes an independent and direct sale and excludes the gallery from its fair commission (pun intended again).

Real life example: A gallery exhibits artist Jane Doe in an art fair in Santa Fe. It is the first time that this artist has been exhibited not only in Santa Fe, but also the first time that Jane, who lives in Poland, has exhibited in the USA.  Suddenly Jane begins to get direct queries from people who live in New Mexico.

Hai Capito?

Senso Unico

Sailor in Naples Eyeing Italian Girl
A 1983 cartoon by F. Lennox Campello