Pricing for Art Consultants :: Deep Thought Thursday

I am not sure what to think … are we talking about more of a decorative style being sold to interior decorators or ? I didn’t think that the art consultant worked as a wholesaler, but then again, I have never actually known a consultant, I thought they were more in line with an art representative … Consultants matched people/corporations with the art/artist… have I interpreted this wrong?
The consultant needs to be paid so if there is not a fee/commission involved, is the wholesale price to compensate for the lack of fee?
But if this is the case, does this not make one more of a wholesaler than consultant?

Yes – I have worked with art consultants and it usually is a 50/50 split. I believe it’s worth it. The art consultants I have worked with have spent hours/days presenting work to the buyers (most of my work sold by art consultants has been purchased by hospitals). After the art is chosen, they are responsible for the matting, framing and most of the time, the hanging of the art work.

Based on what Dianne Poinski has said, I would say it’s definitely okay. It’s important to work from a “many-spoked wheel” when selling your art, I think, the art consultant being one of those spokes alongside galleries, art shows, web site, etc.

It would depend if the consultant was getting paid by their client. Typically they do. If they are why should I give them my wholesale price? A discounted price yes – but not my wholesale price. Isn’t this the same as working with an interior designer?
Gallery owners do not get an artist’s wholesale price – why should an art consultant?

No gallery owners don’t get wholesale. When pricing your work – you have to cover your costs which gives you the wholesale price and then you add whatever percentage you’ve negotiated with the gallery -that is the retail price.
I

Maybe it does vary by industry.
Typically in fine art what the gallery charges for my work and what I charge for my work has to be the same. You don’t undercut your gallery. So if I only calculated my costs as you do above and sold through a gallery that took 50%of the sale I would not cover my costs.
How do you typically sell your art jewelry?

Thank you for this interesting though & the ensuing discussion, which I found insightful and very timely. I am currently forging a business as an art consultant, and am working out how to manage my fees and arrangements with artists and galleries. My role is to help my clients find art for their homes and businesses, and to help negotiate for them to obtain that art. The idea is that in most cases I am able to offer my clients a discount over the normal retail prices, as well as helping them to navigate the art world, which to laypeople is often seen as elite and intimidating. I hope to establish a relationship with many artists and be able to introduce my clients to the more human side of the art market.

I work at an art consulting firm/gallery in the Washington DC area. Most of our clients are corporate clients: corporate headquarters, law firms, lobbying organizations, hospitals, etc.
To answer some of the questions that have been asked by artists: generally we charge our clients for the consulting itself, as it does cost us money to talk with clients, visit spaces, find art/artists, work up presentations to our clients, etc. We also make money on the installation and framing. This allows us to give a fairly substantial discount on art (especially when the client purchases a lot of art by one artist) to our clients and still come out ahead while also paying the artists their percent of the split. The amount of these splits can vary for us substantially but 50/50 is fairly standard for us. So, artists almost always only charge us their net/wholesale price (i.e. their price to a gallery) rather than retail.
There were some concerns about consultants letting consigned works “sit” in favor of selling art we’ve already paid for. This would be a legitimate concern and I can’t say with any certainty what other consulting firms tend to do, but the vast majority of art we have available in our gallery is on consignment rather than owned by us. Typically, the art we sell to a client is a mixture of pieces we already have in our gallery on consignment and work we order/commission directly from the artists at the time of the job. The fact is that selling art on consignment keeps our art current as the artists we work with are eager to have their newest work represented by us. If we buy art, we’re stuck with it until we can sell it, so consignment is the norm.
In conclusion, I agree with what a poster above me said: art consulting is another “spoke in the wheel” when it comes to marketing artwork to potential buyers. In the corporate world especially, many clients simply don’t have the expertise (or desire) to spend time finding art for office spaces on their own and thus we’re able to reach a substantial (and well-funded) market that artists themselves might not otherwise have access to. Furthermore, we establish relationships with both artists and clients that can (and have) span(ned) decades; we have repeat clients who trust our sensibilities and our work and artists who appreciate how much of their work we’ve been able to put into clients’ hands. So long as you’re comfortable giving the same sort of discounts you’d give to any art gallery, working with an art consulting firm is worthwhile.

You bring up some great points, Rachel! I think you forgot to mention that some artists may not want to sell their work in any manner. I don’t think being an artist necessarily means that you’re required to be a professional in any capacity. Art has been an industry for centuries now, but not all art has to be part of the industry, if you ask me.
To be honest, how much information we give the artist about the client (and vice versa) is really a delicate issue. We’ve had cases of clients (or interior designers) that we’ve worked with go behind our backs and buy pieces directly from the artists after we’ve found and proposed art for the space. Usually artists get quite upset when they find out about this as they know it hurts our business and, in turn, can hurt their business. That sort of thing is pretty rare, especially since the prices we give clients aren’t any higher than what the artists charge retail anyway. On the other end, we have to be careful about the details we give the artist about a project sometimes, as some artists are quite eager to get their work chosen and can sometimes try to bypass us and go straight to the client to sell them on their work. Artists can be really persistent and clients tend to not want to be pestered by someone pushing their art. We do provide as much information as possible, usually, such as the nature of the client, the type of building or space the piece is being proposed for, photos of the location, etc. To avoid potential problems, we usually try to avoid giving information like our contacts at the client and the other artists we have on proposal for a project. Of course, once a client has decided on an artist we disclose a lot more information to both parties and we often have artists get really involved with the project and installation of their work.
We don’t typically offer rotating art options for clients as part of our business plan just yet, but as our business grows that might become an option for us. Naturally, how successful such an idea would be would depend on how willing the artists would be to loan out their work.

Great conversation! I’m just starting to work as a full time artist. I had my first meeting with a local art consultant this week. I used to be a Gallery Director and I learned that consultants/designers earned a commission and/or discount rate of 10-20% working with galleries and obtaining work from them. I’ve been researching this a lot today to determine a rate from my studio… What makes this confusing is that it seems many art consultants work differently whether or not they earn a commission through the art portion. I’d like to work directly with consultants, especially if it means I’m earning more for my art… but what is standard? Because honestly, when artists earn more, they can make more art. That’s why I really respect galleries that at least do a 60/40 split for the artist. I agree that taking a cut from both sides seems unethical if the cut taken from the artist is still 50%. And how closely should it be compared to an interior designer… because if so, it seems that it would be more of a designer discount than wholesale. The art consultant was open about her 10% commission from a local gallery and left it up to me but had asked if my net was half. I’d like to stay away from saying what I need to make from a piece and keeping a standard retail pricing with a commission/discount rate. So I offered her 25% which is more than galleries, and I’m even open to 30%. I don’t think she was happy about it and said she’d probably have to bill her clients more to cover herself. My justification is that a gallery earns 50% because of overhead, audience, exhibitions, and promoting you as an artist via social media. But the biggest reason; audience. I think what art consultants do is amazing too, especially creating a steady flow of commission projects to artists. Especially for public projects. But my experience working with galleries for commissions was also 70/30. If an artist should always maintain pricing consistency from their studio, I think discounts to consultants is fine but 50/50 seems unfair. What are your thoughts on different rates of available work vs. commission projects for art consultants?