Don't be dazzled when somebody turns their attention to your art.
Be aware, be smart and be astute - and don't get scammed by a Vanity Gallery
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This page covers:
  • ​What is a Vanity Gallery?  Plus reasons to avoid them.
  • What's NOT a Vanity Gallery - legitimate options where artists 'pay to display'
  • How to recognise a Vanity Gallery - ​PLUS Checklists of questions to ask covering Target audience, marketing, gallery artists and exhibitions, financials and paperwork - including consignment contracts
The business model of a Vanity Gallery revolves around extracting money from artists rather than selling artwork to art lovers.
How can you tell it's a Vanity Gallery | Making A Mark

What is a Vanity Gallery?
​

A Vanity Gallery is to Art what Vanity Publishing is to Books.
It makes its money from the artist NOT from sales of their art.

​People want to see their art on the wall in an exhibition and are prepared to pay for this - just as authors are prepared to pay for their book to be printed.

A Vanity Gallery makes its money primarily from
  • Targeting artists without an established reputation and/or very limited or no experience of working with proper art galleries.
  • Charging artists to rent space for exhibitions - often at exorbitant rates - plus various fees for other services​
  • Making money from payments by the artist rather than by selling art.
A variation on the Vanity Gallery is the Gallery with the frameshop attached which wants to show your work - but only IF you frame all your artwork using their exhibition frames and pay for the brochure and all invites.

​Even with a discount, such galleries are often making their profit from sales of their frames to the artist. They use the artist to showcase their frames in their Galley at no risk to themselves. The whole financial risk is borne by the artist.

Bottom line - if the business purpose of a gallery is extracting money from artists then it is very unlikely to benefit your art career.
Below are a number of articles and blog posts by people who advise artists about the business side of marketing and selling art. They all relate in some way to Vanity Galleries.

​If you want to read some perspectives other than mine, have a read - it's how I learned about Vanity Galleries and how they operate.
REFERENCE: What is Vanity Gallery
REFERENCE: Reasons to Avoid Vanity galleries

Is this Gallery a Vanity Gallery?

It's NOT a Vanity Gallery if......
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​The activities listed below are NOT a Vanity Gallery - although sometimes some artists find it difficult to tell the difference.  Not all spaces where you pay to show your work are Vanity Galleries.
A Vanity Gallery is NOT an Artists' Co-operative:
  • Artists' Co-operatives generally work on the basis of a no-profit basis goal i.e. cover costs and artists pay no more than their due
  • Artists might be charged for wall space
  • Artists contribute artwork and also contribute to work involved in holding an exhibition e.g. gallery stewards / selling artwork.
  • Those who do not out in the time on stewarding etc can be charged more fees for their share of the costs
  • Beware: an artists' co-operative can degenerate into a vanity gallery if too few artists put in the effort required to run a gallery.
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Payment of fees does NOT equate to a Vanity Gallery:
  • Juried exhibitions by reputable art societies and art competitions often charge an entry fee and/or hanging fee.  That's because they need to cover the cost of running and displaying an open exhibition.
  • Fees can be high re. high profile art societies with prestigious exhibitions e.g.  Royal Academy of Art's Summer Exhibition.
Commercial Galleries that rent out space are NOT all Vanity Galleries 
  • Galleries that earn income from selling art also want their space to earn money in-between shows.  Thus they rent it out for events - or let space to artists for their own exhibitions
  • Such galleries frequently have strict criteria for the type of artist they will allow in their space - because they have a reputation to maintain.
  • The artist rents a facility. A fee is charged for rental for the space and any services offered (e.g. processing sales) but the galleries usually take no commission.  How you market your exhibition is up to you. They may provide limited assistance.
  • A gallery is NOT a Vanity Gallery if the bulk of their business comes from exhibitions which are curated by reputable / prestigious art societies

LEARN HOW to recognise a Vanity Gallery - and what questions to ask.
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 A Vanity Gallery might be a bricks and mortar gallery
- or it can be virtual - in an online gallery or a book.  ​

See below for checklists of questions to ask yourself when reviewing options on offer.

Target Market

The typeof artist typically targeted by the Vanity Gallery include:
  • A naive / emerging artist without an art gallery - who wants to get his or her art shown
  • People who will pay good money to get their art shown
  • People who know little about the reputations of those who operate in the art market
  • Artists who know little about how proper commercial art galleries operate
  • People who produce art which is not very good i.e. unlikely to ever become a gallery artist or get their artwork shown in a proper commercial gallery
  • Artists who don't check out reputations and track records and don't ask questions

Having a website, blog or Facebook Page make it so much easier for galleries operating in other countries to target you and your aspirations for your art.

It's up to you to be smart and refuse to be naive.
TARGET AUDIENCE CHECKLIST - Questions to ask:
  1. Why would they approach you - out of the blue?​ Do you think your artwork is good enough to be exhibited in a show? (This answer might well depend on how many exhibitions you've been to see)
  2. How does the Gallery recruit their artists?  Is it based on the quality of their artwork or their ability to pay their fees?
  3. Check out the name and reputation of the gallery amongst artists who know more than you do.   The Agora Gallery is a very well known vanity gallery.  If you see a link to it on an artist's website then you know that person has a lot to learn
  4. Google the name of the gallery and look at what people (other than the gallery) are saying online - it can tell you very fast what sort of place a gallery is
  5. How many people characterise it as a Vanity Gallery? There's a school of thought that says you can damage your career by exhibiting with a Vanity Gallery - since the exhibition is dependent on you paying rather than the art being good enough.  Having a Vanity Gallery on your CV could damage your chances of becoming a gallery artist at a "proper" art gallery

Marketing 
​

Marketing by Vanity Galleries typically has certain characteristics which can be used to check them out.

Vanity galleries typically
  • pitch their offering via a standard letter which indicates absolutely no awareness of your artwork ie the same remarks might have been made about anybody's art.
  • highlight one artwork to demonstrate they've looked at your website
  • advertise for artists to exhibit work in their gallery.
Exhibitions at such galleries often get no coverage by reputable art critics

Not all vanity galleries are B&M galleries on the street - some are online.  Vanity type-activities  may seek artwork for an online competition or a book in return for a fee.  They may offer you a link to their website in return to a link to theirs (it's what Saatchi did!)
MARKETING CHECKLIST - Questions to ask:
  1. Is the email used to contact you one which seems like a typical standard/spam letter?
  2. Are there any indications they have actually looked at your work - or just picked a work at random?
  3. If you contact them can they remember your work without prompting? Do they know what it's about?
  4. Ask them to send URLs for coverage of recent exhibitions in art journals
  5. Does their website have a page of press cuttings re exhibitions at the gallery? 
  6. Do the press cuttings relate to press releases which the artist had fed to home town newspapers  (ie artist generated) or are they reviews by art journals with a good reputation for reviewing exhibitions?
  7. How much traffic does their website get?
  8. How does their website rank relative to others?
  9. Check out the background to art competitions (e.g. google it online)
  10. Check out the reputation of these people as publishers of books about current artists (check out their publications on Amazon)

Gallery Identity, Exhibitions and Gallery Artists
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Gallery Identity/Exhibitions: Successful galleries often have 'an identity' in terms of the type of art they show.  

However the exhibitions held in Vanity Galleries tend to be very diverse suggesting:
  • either that the people who they market exhibitions to have very eclectic tastes
  • or a lot of the marketing will be wasted on people who simply don't care for most of the artwork

Gallery Artists: Serious commercial art galleries tend to
  • have a 'roster' of gallery artists whose work they sell on an ongoing basis and whose exhibitions they hold from time to time.
  • show work by their artists over a period of years in group shows and solo shows (more than one)

By way of contrast, Vanity Galleries typically do not have "gallery artists" although they may well try to suggest that they do. If you review the list of past exhibitions and/or the artists' bio pages, it's typical for vanity galleries to have artists who hold one show only.
GALLERIES & EXHIBITIONS CHECKLIST - Questions to ask:
  1. What sort of artwork do they focus on?  Is their answer reflected in what's on their website?
  2. Do they highlight testimonials from satisfied artists?  Serious 'proper' art galleries simply don't do this
  3. Do they have a list of gallery artists who remain with them over the years?
  4. Check out with a gallery artist (or artist which has used their services) what type of arrangement they have (or had) with the gallery and whether they recommend the gallery.  
  5. Do they want your email list of "followers" or are they happy for you to distribute invites to the exhibition yourself?
  6. Do they want to frame your work for you?  (Frame shops can keeps their framing business ticking over by making frames for artists who then have an exhibition in their space.)  
REFERENCE: Alternative Options to Vanity Galleries

Financials (how to avoid making an expensive mistake)
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Being fooled by a Vanity Gallery can prove to be a very expensive mistake. It's best to beware of all the financial implications of getting entangled in their web of deceit.

​Some vanity galleries:
  • try to avoid any risk to themselves by charging the artist a hefty fee
  • have a complex system of fees which involve you paying for absolutely everything
  • and still want commission for a sale!
Their business model seems to revolve around success in getting artists to pay them fees rather  than success in getting people to buy art.
FINANCIALS CHECKLIST - Questions to ask:
  1. How does the Gallery make its money - fees from artists or sales to buyers?
  2. Will they take your work if you only pay them commission for what they sell?  If not, why not?
  3. What do they actually spend money on for the fee they ask?
  4. What other activities do they undertake to cover their overheads?
  5. What's the incentive for the Gallery to work hard at selling your art if you've removed all financial risk in relation to their own activities and outgoings?
  6. How is risk shared?
  7. Do they lose if you sell nothing?
  8. How much do you lose if they sell nothing?
  9. Is the amount you have to pay reasonable for the work they are doing?
  10. How much artwork do you have to sell to break even?
REFERENCE:

Paperwork and consignment agreements
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Vanity Galleries can often be averse to proper documentation and records of transactions between the artist and the gallery.  
  • Contracts which do exist may distort the proper balance and sharing of risks and expenses of an exhibition.
  • Avoid the "handshake agreement".
Don’t leave any art work anywhere, for any time period, without a signed consignment agreement.
Renee Phillips
PAPERWORK CHECKLIST - Questions to ask:
  1. Do they have a proper commercial contract for representing your artwork? Ask them to send you a sample contract.
  2. If your artwork is damaged or lost while in their care who pays?
  3. How you are going to recover your art if you never hear from them again? ​
REFERENCE:
Below is a 45 minute video of a talk at the New York Foundation for the Arts by Jonathan Melber, a lawyer at a at a prominent arts-and-entertainment law firm and the co-author of ART/WORK: Everything You Need To Know (And Do) As You Pursue Your 
Art Career (artworkbook.net).

He explains what you need to write down - and why - when you
  • consign work to a venue,
  • donate to an auction or
  • sell from your studio.
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