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how to price your work
Decidingwhat to charge for your workwhen you’ve
only just graduated can be confusing. Here, a variety of
visual art professionals offers some advice.
Be realistic – do your research
My advice to graduates is be realistic and do your research. Visit
respected spaces showing and selling work by artists at a similar
career point (your peer group) and decide whether the pricing is
fair. Bear in mind that recent graduates showing in a gallery may
well have gallery commission included in the final sale price –
usually 30-50%. Directly after college, you want to be building
enduring relationships, so be pragmatic – it’s better to sell a work at
a negotiated price to a respected gallerist, curator or collector than to
stick to your guns and stay with a price that they consider too high.
Anyone serious about your work won’t be interested in exploiting
you but may be looking at paying closer to £1,000 for a painting
from a recent graduate rather than £10,000. A good starting point is
articles that will help give you a baseline, such this
and a-n’s
and
pages.
Lucy Day, curator,
Take your cue from the work itself
Take your cue about pricing your work from the work itself. Do you
make work that would sell best with a lo-fi vibe, in an edition of
hundreds and fairly cheap? or does your work suggest something
quieter and rarer, a more exclusive approach with a higher price tag?
There needs to be a logic that follows through from the work you
make, where you show it, who your market is, and how the price is
pitched.
is great (and includes a tip on
pricing).
Sue Jones, curator Whitstable Biennial
Identify the cost price first
Are you charging enough? First you need to identify the cost
price of your product, and include all your costs (don’t forget
all your overheads). Many young artists just pluck a figure out
of the air without knowing how much it actually costs them to
produce something. You can find a detailed but easy to follow
seven-step guide to calculate the price of your product on the
When you start selling to retailers, shops and galleries you might
get confused with all the different price terminology: cost price,
wholesale price, trade discounts. To come across as credible and