I decided to tell you a little about a small business that my friend has been doing for 3 years. He collaborates with several painters.
He finds orders for paintings for them and receives an agreed percentage of the sale, that is, he acts as an intermediary between the artist and the customer.
This is his additional occupation, which, in addition to the main job, brings him a good income of 20-30 thousand per month. At the moment, he is no longer looking for orders, most of the customers are regular customers or their friends and acquaintances. Therefore, now he can only negotiate by phone with the customer and the artist and receive part of the money for his work.
Talents need help...
Probably all of you have heard this expression. “talents need help, mediocrity will break through on their own” And in fact, in Russia there are a lot of good talented artists who live starving. These artists can really be helped, of course, with personal benefit.
The fact is that artists who can draw do not know how to sell. A pictures, whatever one may say, this is still a product that, like any other product, needs advertising. We are not going to talk about high art and how real painting should look like. And we will not affect collectors and connoisseurs of pictorial art. Let's talk about the so-called "salon painting", painting for sale. These are oil paintings on canvas, with detailed drawing, pleasing to the eye of an ordinary buyer who knows little about painting.
Such paintings are mainly intended for gifts and interior decoration. They have an affordable price, and the name of the artist himself, in fact, does not matter. It is with such pictures that my friend works. All you need is to find artists who can paint beautiful paintings in the salon genre and find the first customers for them.
Where to find artists for collaboration
You can advertise on free internet boards and in the newspaper. Find artists on special Internet services or in educational institutions. From personal experience, I can say that finding good artists is not difficult. Personally, for the sake of the experiment, I decided to order an oil painting (landscape 50x60 with a lot of details), I left an ad on the virtuzor service. ru Indicated a small amount of 5000 rubles. On the very first day, I received about 20 letters from obviously hungry artists who were ready to paint this picture for me for 3,000 and even some for 2,000 rubles. Almost all of them were with higher education and a high level of writing.
And so everywhere most artists who paint are sitting without work! They don't have orders! And if there is, it is very rare and most often from friends and acquaintances. And they need to live somehow, so they are poor and get out as best they can, grab any order with their hands and feet and are ready to gnaw the throat of their unfortunate painting comrades.
So with the search for artists, you definitely won’t have any problems, but with the search for customers, of course, it will be more difficult, but nevertheless, the task is quite doable.
Where to look for customers for paintings
The first thing to do is this high quality photo album works of artists, you should have it, both in electronic form and in live form. Artists are slovenly and untidy people, and as a rule, photographs of their work are taken in exactly the same way. This needs to be taken care of first.
Internet galleries
Further, it would be useful to exhibit paintings by artists in online galleries, if the artists, of course, have not yet managed to register themselves in these services. The most popular online gallery today is artnau.ru. Still, you shouldn't really rely on these services, there are a lot of artists there, and therefore orders will be extremely rare.
Personal website for the artist
But creating a personal website for an artist would be a very good option. Some artists have already concocted their own sites, but all of them, to put it mildly, leave much to be desired. They are miserable and absolutely "zero"! The maximum that I have seen good is just a beautiful design - that's all! Nearly all attendance is zero.
Little attendance is not due to the fact that people have ceased to be interested in paintings, but because all these sites are made completely illiterately. They contain only photographs of works, at best, carefully photographed and processed in Photoshop, and a small biography about the artist himself. And that's it! There is nothing more! I wonder where visitors can come from? There is no text! No ads!
Sites are completely unoptimized and not promoted.
Therefore, as you understand, the creation of a site will be useful only if it has at least some traffic, otherwise it makes no sense. By the way if you need a website or its promotion - write to me.
Social media
Also, when looking for orders, do not forget about social networks! Register the artist in all popular social networks. networks. Make a beautiful page with photos of paintings and the author himself in the process. You can shoot a video of how the artist paints a picture from start to finish and post the video on social networks, YouTube and the website.
In general, there are a lot of ways to advertise a product on the Internet, you just need to do it and, if necessary, connect the right people. It is worth starting to advertise paintings offline with business cards. Be sure to make a few business cards that you can leave with your first clients and distribute to everyone. Print flyers, hire some student to drop them in mailboxes. Negotiate with the owners of shops selling gifts or interior accessories, hang a few banners, leave business cards.
Pricing
The price of a painting in the salon genre depends on the quality of execution, the complexity of the drawing, the number of details, the subject and, accordingly, its size. The percentage that you take yourself for the work is negotiated individually with the artist. Usually intermediaries take 30% of the cost of the painting. But given that artists have an acute shortage of orders, then the percentage of sales to yourself can be set much higher! Many artists are ready to work for a penny, because it is better to earn at least something than to be completely unemployed.
Well, let's finish this, I think that the basic principle of work is clear to you. There is nothing complicated in such a business; it does not require large investments either. You just need to take it seriously. If you managed to make money by selling paintings from my friend, then you will definitely succeed too. Good luck!
sell a painting in Moscow
If a person loves art, then such a business will bring him a lot of joy, because doing what you love is always much more pleasant. You just need to think through everything well and then your favorite business will begin to bring a lot of benefits, as well as good earnings.
Registration number 0396962 issued for the work: If a person is drawn to art, but at the same time he himself does not have any abilities in this area, then this is not a reason to be sad and upset. When a person has a great desire to be closer to art, he can build a real business on art. True, in order for such a business to begin to bring a good income, the entrepreneur will have to try very hard.
How to start a business selling paintings.
Before you start selling paintings, you need to find where to buy them or from whom to take paintings for sale. Although in reality this is not a problem at all, because you can find people who can draw well and beautifully and want to sell a painting in Moscow, so paintings for subsequent resale can be ordered from them. To do this, it is not necessary to apply specifically to eminent artists, they usually charge a lot of money for their services. Therefore, you will need to find a few emerging artists who have good potential, they can draw great pictures and take not very big money for their work.
Next, you will need to put up the works of artists for sale, for this it would be nice to have your own store, but if not, then you can sell paintings via the Internet. You just need to find a suitable site where you can place your ad for the sale of copyright paintings and additionally upload photos of your product. To make the process go faster, such an ad must be placed on several sites on the network, because there are usually quite a lot of them. You should also give an additional announcement in the newspaper, since not all people know how to use the Internet.
A business that will be related to art can be built not only on the sale of paintings, but, for example, a person can open his own gallery and exhibit works there. To open a gallery, it is not at all necessary to draw all the paintings yourself; they can also be ordered from other artists. If you manage to promote your gallery well, then it will bring excellent profits. The main thing is to find a convenient place, somewhere in the city center to open a gallery and not take money for visiting the gallery.
If a person loves art, then such a business will bring him a lot of joy, because doing what you love is always much more pleasant. You just need to think through everything well and then your favorite business will begin to bring a lot of benefits, as well as good earnings.
However, there is a paradoxical situation: demand is huge, galleries in big cities are growing by leaps and bounds, budgets are approaching the level of world auction houses at an unprecedented rate, but the art itself has disappeared somewhere. In addition, the money revolving in the gallery business is increasingly attracting attention, since the lion's share of transactions for the sale of art is, in fact, illegal.
As the directors of the capital's galleries say, "the people received bread - now they demand spectacles." And not just Hollywood blockbusters. According to the commissioner of the Moscow Biennale Iosif Backshtein, after buying a large apartment, a prestigious car and a vacation in Switzerland, the purchase of exclusive art is on the list of a wealthy person - be it an antique chandelier or an avant-garde painting for a bedroom. In addition, as statistics show, art (especially antiques) today is one of the most profitable areas for investing money - paintings become more expensive by about 300% a year. As a result, after the passions around and loans subsided, a new fad began in Moscow - gallery and auction fever.
“The impulse for the development of the gallery business comes from the current interest in art, from love for beauty. This is a natural human need that requires satisfaction and gives life an emotional coloring,” says Marina Goncharenko, who has just opened her own GMG gallery right in the center of the capital. At the same time, her gallery is going to represent both domestic and foreign artists. To the question of the observer "NI", what is now profitable to sell, she jokingly answered - jewelry. But then she added: “If we are serious about what is promising now, I think that diversity is just what is important now. You can not offer one thing, because each person has a personal look. So, at the opening of the gallery, I immediately presented six artists who work in completely different genres: Peter Zimmermann - in technocratic, Bjorn Melhus - video, Michael Lin - installation, Anatoly Zhuravlev - photo installation, Nikita Alekseev shows graphics, and Nikolai Filatov - painting " .
As practice shows, today there is not a single completely “closed” niche on the market - insanely expensive masterpieces, designer dolls, and small circulation items are bought up. Over the past year in Moscow, for example, incredibly strong antique players have appeared: the Proun Gallery works with an almost museum-like avant-garde of the 1920s and 30s, and the wealthy Elena (at Patriarch’s Ponds) is once again trying to regain confidence in socialist realism. Plus, the powerful aggression of London antique dealers - this year Christie's and Sotheby's (which opened an official office in Russia) held exhibitions of their hits with noise - from Goncharova and Modigliani to Faberge eggs, which were then sold to Russians for tens of millions. Antiquarians are opposed by “moderate avant-gardists” (here are the new Polina Lobachevskaya Gallery, the fresh art4.ru museum, the Ekaterina Foundation, and institutions founded by Zurab Tsereteli, especially the Zurab Gallery).
Even those artists who had previously turned up their noses at the market have revived - it has already been announced that a gallery will open in Gostiny Dvor, which is going to sell nothing less than Alexander Shilov and Nikas Safronov.
However, dealers engaged in modern photography, one of the least “labor-intensive” genres, have recently acted as the most powerful front. Previously, the Moscow House of Photography held a monopoly here. Now only in the art center "Winzavod" there are three photo galleries. At the same time, one of them is a completely new format. “We have abandoned mandatory exhibitions, and focus on the demand of buyers,” Tatyana Kurtanova, one of the founders of FotoLoft, admitted to NI. – And we ourselves form this demand by showing a variety of photographic works. Often, gallery owners are cunning that they are only interested in art, and sales are a secondary matter. Trade is conducted as if from under the floor - they say, we have negotiated prices.
The issue of delimiting pure art and commerce for our gallery owners has always been the most painful. In the era of the first gallery boom of the early 1990s, there was no talk of profit (they sold mainly abroad), it was a time of ideological separation from official art. Today, on the contrary, demand is often higher than supply. One of the most experienced dealers, Polina Lobachevskaya, is sure that today “there are a lot more galleries than good artists, so the same masters shuffle around - whoever offers them the most, they go for it.” Sergei Popov, director of one of the relatively young but already successful Pop/Off/Art galleries, does not quite agree with her. “I do not argue that there are personnel,” he said to “NI”. “But at the same time, we are experiencing both a colossal surge in activity and a rise in prices. Previously, gallery expenses - non-commercial exhibitions, catalogs, participation in foreign fairs - almost did not pay off. Today, even the most unambitious galleries work for profit. We still have two important niches that no one has filled yet. One is already being probed by Western dealers - Western paintings for the rich. But it’s much more interesting to do “young art”, where ideas are more creative and prices are lower – an average of 2-3 thousand dollars.”
As for prices, on average, one work of a famous contemporary artist costs about 10 thousand dollars. The works of stars - artists represented at international fairs and shows (Art Basel, FIAC, ARCO, at the Venice Biennale) - are three to four times higher. Western guest performers (for example, the Triumph and Gary Tatintsyan galleries are engaged in them) sell paintings from 50 to 150 thousand dollars.
However, the main problem is seen not even in the cost of paintings, but in the very organization of the gallery business. This business does not want to become legal. How to separate a commercial exhibition from a non-commercial one in one gallery? There are always double standards and double bookkeeping. It is clear that when a gallery owner is looking for money to organize a joint exhibition with the Tretyakov Gallery or the Hermitage, he does not want to pay 18% VAT at all. But at the same time, who keeps track of all the sales in his gallery? By definition, it turns out that the art business, based on mediation between the artist and the collector, is the darkest. No one names clear prices, no one announces income, no one advertises buyers. That is why the environment of antique dealers and dealers is still the most fertile for crime.
Meanwhile, many problems that, at first glance, come from art dealers, turn out to be problems of the whole society and specifically the state. Thus, one of the most reputable Moscow gallery owners, Aidan Salakhova, never tires of repeating that we do not have any legal framework regarding galleries (galleries as commercial structures, not commission stores) or patronage. For example, she can't account for the sale of an installation, because bureaucratic documents simply don't know this intricate concept. Sergei Popov, not trying to go into political issues, notes: “Sometimes one gets the feeling that many structures, from government officials to transportation services, were simply not ready for the art boom. Here is the problem with the insurance of works, with their certification (they are not 100% solved), with their transportation. Problems with customs have already been heard in the press more than once. But what can I say, if it is difficult to buy a decent frame in Moscow!”
In addition to purely economic and organizational problems, problems of a purely ideological nature have become more acute. How should the authorities deal with contemporary art? at customs with "controversial work" have become almost the rule. Should museum censorship be extended to private galleries? How to support those who really develop cultural projects? And, on the contrary, is it worth tightening the screws on the overzealous gallery business today? The craving for beauty is already supported by big money, but there is less culture in it than one might expect.
A lot of people on our planet like art. Everyone shows their love for art in their own way: whether it is, or admiring the painting. Unfortunately, not everyone can buy a masterpiece of some famous artist. Sometimes, even reproductions of paintings are very expensive. Most often, paintings are bought as a gift, both to themselves and to other people. It is on the basis of this idea that we offer you to build your business.
The business idea is to make reproductions of very famous painters. The basis of the canvas is chipboard, which is first processed, then a picture previously printed on the printer is glued onto it, and then hidden with varnish.
Imagine that you and I are not the first who wanted to do such business idea. In order to stand among the great competition, you need to provide customers with a product that is not only inexpensive, but also unique. We invite you to keep up with the times. The latest trend in the world of pictorial fashion is paintings that flow smoothly onto the frame and are an indivisible part of it.
Let's try to use this method on ordinary reproductions. In order for your creations to be in demand, we invite you to create a large range of products. Then everyone can find something for themselves. To do this, you can use different styles: classic, vintage, baby chic, apply craquelure, etc.
To get started, you need to rent a room. Your own apartment can be used as a workshop, but it is better to use non-residential premises for these purposes, for example, a basement, an attic, so that the smell of paint and varnish products does not poison your life. In addition, you will simply need a large table where you will work with chipboard, as well as a drying cabinet. A drying cabinet can be made using an electric heater.
One of the most difficult things on the way to the realization of your business ideas is the selection of materials that must be both of high quality and affordable. You can use silver or gold to cover the frames, but the price for such a product will be correspondingly higher.
And now let's calculate the minimum costs. You will need to purchase:
1 - computer or laptop;
2 - inkjet color printer;
3 - various formats of chipboard;
5 - paper for making business cards, A4 format;
6 - sandpaper;
7 - acrylic varnishes of various shades: gold, silver, furniture, craquelure, etc.
We will spend about 23 rubles on making such a picture, and we will sell it for 230 rubles (the same paintings in the store cost about 300 rubles). For one picture, we will receive a net profit of 200 rubles, this amount will already include all expenses. With the sale of 100 paintings per month, your income will be 20,000 rubles. If you sell your work in several retail chains at once, your profit can reach 2 thousand dollars.
Not everyone can afford to collect paintings. It is even more difficult for artists who are trying to sell their works of art. How to open a gallery in Moscow, what paintings are in demand, and why artists do not undertake to paint under Van Gogh and Monet, Pavel Chibiskov, an artist and owner of art galleries in the capital, told the RIAMO observer.
Pictures instead of carpets
Pavel came into the gallery business thanks to a family business. In the 1990s, his father began to sell paintings by fellow artists at a spontaneous opening at the Central House of Artists (CHA). According to Pavel, in the late 1990s, business took off, as the demand for paintings increased, and many people wanted paintings instead of carpets on the walls.
Your first art gallery "Grisaille" in the shopping center "Tishinka" Pavel and his father opened in 2010.
According to him, in order to seriously engage in the gallery business, you need to have a circle of trusted artists who will not let you down and complete the order on time.
“This is a highly specialized business that is easier to build if you yourself are from this world - an artist, art critic or gallery employee, if you are able to organize a selection of high-quality paintings, make a decision when artists bring you paintings for sale,” says the gallery owner.
What paintings are in price
However, it is not difficult to organize a gallery as a point of sale for paintings in Moscow. The main thing is to choose the right room with the expectation of visitors, because this is not a trade in things and not a museum, the gallery owner notes.
“For metropolitan shopping centers, an art gallery is still a rarity, since the rent there is designed for large retail chains, and the audience there is not the same,” Pavel explains.
In addition, the location of the gallery affects the assortment: provincial landscapes sell well on the outskirts of Moscow, urban landscapes are better in the center of the capital, as well as popular Italian motifs - blue skies and exotic trees of Tuscany, or Provence lavender.
Who buys paintings
For the buyer, the advantage of buying in a gallery is that the sellers are responsible for each painting sold and are ready to provide a guarantee for restoration services.
“If in the 90s even hack-work was rolled on the opening day, since most buyers did not understand art, today customers are more sophisticated, they are the ones who set the final cost of the picture,” Pavel notes.
The main connoisseurs of Russian art today are not Russians, but Chinese, and not only tourists, but also entrepreneurs who do business in Moscow. There was also a client from the UAE, the gallery owner recalls.
“In the past, the Chinese bought landscapes with green leaves the most, and the smaller the details, the better. Now they have become more demanding - they are ready to spend a lot of money on worthwhile things, but they like to bargain, ”says the gallery owner.
According to him, among Muscovites paintings are bought by middle-aged people with high incomes. Sometimes pensioners come who have been saving up for a painting for a long time. And yet, regular customers today are mostly wealthy people.
“Due to the crisis, the middle class practically left our buyers, they began to save on paintings in the first place, because the average price of a painting is 60-70 thousand rubles,” says Pavel.
seasonal demand
Most often, paintings are purchased in order to hang at home, so warm tones are held in high esteem, which are easy to fit into the interior of a typical Moscow apartment. Pavel's galleries feature mainly classical paintings - still lifes, sea and city landscapes.
According to the gallery owner, some artists are ready to work in different directions, including in the genre of contemporary art, but the majority of buyers want the classics.
“The inhabitants of Moscow most of all like landscapes. A win-win option - natural beauty. These can be village views, Russian nature - forests, lakes, as well as landscapes of France and Italy, ”says the artist.
Also sold well are still lifes - bottles of wine, cheese and grapes.
“Bottles have been in fashion for a long time. Firstly, wine is a noble drink, secondly, many wealthy people have their own wine cellars, and thirdly, such a picture can be given as a gift, especially to people who have everything,” Pavel explains.
One popular request from clients is to paint a copy of Claude Monet or Vincent van Gogh, but not every artist will undertake such work, as the copy will often be very inferior to the original, the gallery owner explains. According to Pavel, there are times when clients refuse to buy an ordered copy and choose another painting.
Meanwhile, the fashion for paintings is set not by the major exhibitions that take place in Moscow, but by the seasons. “After the Serov exhibition, no one came to order The Girl with Peaches,” Pavel notes.
According to him, in the summer it is almost impossible to sell a painting with a winter landscape, as people are tired of seeing snow, and green landscapes go with a bang, but in winter everyone wants white hats on Christmas trees.
How much are the paintings
Pavel and his father opened another gallery in the Central House of Artists just a year ago, but they buy worse paintings here than on Tishinka. Dozens of painters are exhibited in the Grisaille Gallery, but their composition is changing, new artists appear. According to the gallery owner, the artist himself must feel which paintings are in demand, and the gallery staff must have experience in selecting paintings.
“If we see a high-quality painting and consider it attractive to our clients, we are happy to place it in our gallery,” says Pavel.
For any artist, periods of lack of money are normal, since the income from the sale of paintings is very unstable. Pavel's gallery had months of downtime and millions of transactions. The artist attributes the end of summer and the beginning of autumn to the losing months, when nothing is sold at all.
“The price of a painting can vary from 5,000 rubles, like a poster from IKEA, to several million, which also depends on many factors: the artist’s ambitions, his regalia, participation in exhibitions, status in the field of art, as well as the cost of materials and the size of the canvas” , Pavel explains.
Crisis times for the Central House of Artists
Pavel himself exhibits his paintings at the opening day near the Central House of Artists, and the most successful of them go to the gallery. According to the gallery owner, for many generations of Moscow artists this is a legendary place, but now it is going through times of crisis. A new generation of artists also want to exhibit at the Central House of Artists, but all the places here have been occupied since the Soviet era.
Several years ago, during the reconstruction of the Krymskaya embankment, the city authorities wanted to demolish the vernissage, but the artists rallied and saved the exhibition. As a result, the vernissage was ennobled, the artists got a roof over their heads and left-luggage offices, however, the amount of space for exhibiting decreased three times, says Pavel.
Since the Soviet era, any self-respecting artist has dreamed of organizing an exhibition in the Central House of Artists, but today this site is going through times of crisis. “Today, pop stars give concerts at this site, exhibitions that are far from art are held, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find new artists for the gallery,” the gallery owner regrets.
According to Pavel, another popular platform for artists - the transition from Gorky Park to Muzeon - is currently under reconstruction, and it is not yet clear whether the artists will be able to return there.
Olga Shvenk
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