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 - The LEGITIMATE options where artists 'pay to display'
• How to recognise a Vanity Gallery
• PLUS CHECKLISTS OF VANITY GALLERY 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

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What is a Vanity Gallery?
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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.

How a Vanity Gallery makes its money:
primarily they make money 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.

Another variation is the Event Organiser who needs "free art" to decorate an event they are organising for another client - where the purpose is NOT about selling art (even if the art is available to buy)

Just to be clear, what she is describing, a gallery asking for a fee to show your work, is the classical definition of what has been labeled the “vanity” gallery. For those readers unfamiliar with the term, let me explain. The idea is that these galleries, instead of taking work  on consignment based on the marketability and merit of the work,  play to the “vanity” of artists. Instead of waiting for their work to improve or waiting until they’ve gained further recognition for their work, these artists are willing to pay the fee to get the exposure.

Should Artists Show their Art in “Vanity” Galleries?  by Jason Horesj | Reddotblog (my bold)

To believe an exhibition in any gallery in a major city at any cost will garner the attention of serious curators and collectors is naïve at best. Although they may appear to have credibility to outsiders, vanity galleries are viewed dimly by knowledgeable art professionals. As one art critic said to me, “When I see such a gallery on an artist’s resume, I know they paid to have their ego stroked.” Furthermore, the uneven quality of art found in most of these galleries turns away serious collectors.
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• Vanity Galleries: Pay to Play at Your Own Risk by Renee Phillips | Professional Artists Magazine

It is an unfortunate fact in any professional venture that you need to stay informed and on your toes to avoid being ripped off. In the art world, sadly, the potential for this is alive and well. There are numerous ways that artists can find themselves at the wrong end of a bad deal and possibly near the top of this list are so-called “pay to play galleries.” Also known as vanity galleries because they play on the very human tendency to fall victim to flattery, these places seem to offer something too good to be true. That’s because in many cases, it is too good to be true.

Five Galleries to be Wary of Because You Might Get Ripped Off by Brainard Carey | Praxis

Here are some key takeaways from this experience:
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• Know the gallery that is pitching to you. Are they reputable…do your due diligence carefully. What is the standard of the images on display? If they look like crappy pics, then stay clear;
• Keep in mind that exhibiting at some Vanity Galleries may harm your reputation when pitching to top-tier galleries;
• Don’t pay money up front to exhibit. If the gallery believes in you enough they’ll be willing to share some of the risk with you.
• Keep track of all the promises made and not fulfilled. Three strikes and you’re out!
• Keep track of communication lines…are they ignoring your emails and phone calls. If so, that’s a big red flag.
• Lastly, what does your gut tell you? Learn to listen to it and don’t just ignore the red flags…things will not necessarily suddenly “be alright”.

Photographers, Beware of Vanity Galleries by Alex Rotenberg's Brutally Honest Guide to Microstock

RECOMMENDED VIEWING: a video by an artist who scammed a Vanity Gallery to test out their approach to showing art!
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Vanity Galleries may not have a permanent base

Companies that operate like a Vanity Gallery may not have a permanent base - but rather organise art fairs / exhibitions / events.

An artist commented on an item about art scams on my Facebook Page about one such company - based in London.  He felt he'd had a very unsatisfactory experience.  I checked out the location of the event and saw the photos of how this guy's artwork was hung and was very unimpressed. That comment has since been removed because the company contacted the artist and indicated they needed the comment to be removed - which he did. Such pressure is a VERY common strategy by such companies who want to appear squeaky clean on the surface even if they have artists who are very dissatisfied with their services. 

Moral of the story - ALWAYS check out the references to the name before you sign any contract 
- with services like How's My Dealing. This company is still on there - with mostly negative comments.

Below are a number of articles and blog posts - about Vanity Galleries - by people who advise artists about the business side of marketing and selling art. 

Plus some helpful links BELOW for checking out the status of various "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?

• ​How can you tell when it's a vanity gallery? | Making A Mark (12.2.13) ​ provides a detailed checklist of characteristics and questions to ask.  This is my blog post which provided a lot of the content for this web page​
• Marketing Mondays: The Vanity Gallery | Joanne Mattera - highlights the type of approach by a Vanity Gallery and lists some Vanity galleries
• The Rise of Vanity Galleries | Robert Genn - the hard cold fact is that artists are always entering the market with substandard art that also just happens to be difficult to sell. Vanity galleries will see these folks as their natural prey.
• Secrets to Understanding the NYC Art World: Beware the Vanity Gallery (2012) by Gary Bolyer
• What is a Vanity Gallery | ArtWeb - ​Think hard before committing to a Vanity Gallery and consider the other options
• Vanity Gallery | Wikipedia

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REFERENCE: Reasons to Avoid VANITY Galleries

• Why Artists should avoid Vanity Galleries | Renee Phillips on the Pay to Play Game In Which Artists Have Much to Lose - a subject she's discussed in lectures and articles since the 80's.
• Vanity Galleries: Pay to Play at Your Own Risk by Renee Phillips | Professional Artists Magazine
• Pay Galleries, Shows, Contests, Offers: Worth It or Worthless? | artbusiness.com - Will They Be Good for Your Career? Or Are They Dead Ends, Time Wastes or Scams?
• Should Artists Show their Art in “Vanity” Galleries? | Jason Horesj | Reddotblog (2016) - A gallery owner who provides lots of helpful information to artists comments on how artist can get ripped off if inexperienced.
• Five Galleries to be Wary of Because You Might Get Ripped Off by Brainard Carey | Praxis (2016) - names five 'pay to play' galleries in the USA.
• Beware vanity galleries - Art Biz Blog - Read the comments for the experience of other artists
• Vanity Galleries: Can they be harmful to your reputation and art marketing strategy? | FineArtViews
  Vanity art galleries are not the stepping stone toward greater things within the art world. Trust me on this - legitimate gallery owners will not be rushing to exhibit you just because you have been successful at a vanity gallery.
• Vanity Gallery - Art Scam or Art Opportunity? | FineArtViews - Artists often contact me to find out if vanity galleries are worth pursuing, if they are strategic for art marketing and so on. My answer has always been a very firm “N0”
• Photographers, Beware of Vanity Galleries by Alex Rotenberg's Brutally Honest Guide to Microstock - by a photographer who got scammed.
• Vanity Galleries: A cruel history | The Art Edge - The vanity gallery model has not changed much over the decades. The model has always involved 'hitting' hopeful artists with excessive fees -- luring them to pay for their dreams.
• Why Artists Should Avoid Vanity Galleries | Spacial Anomaly - Highlights typical approaches to artists and alternatives to vanity galleries for those wanting to promote their art

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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
• or it can be a company which organises art events / exhibitions.

See below for checklists of questions to ask yourself when reviewing options on offer.
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Is this Gallery a VANITY Gallery?
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Do you get unsolicited email offers or invitations from galleries, art fairs, publishers, social media pages, or websites to show your art, apply for contests or shows, be included in books or directories, or for other forms of exposure? If an offer or invitation comes to you unsolicited and you've never heard of the senders, you need to know more before you get all excited, especially if any fees are involved.
How to Research Artist Offers to Pay for Shows or Exposure 

• Art Galleries, Exhibitions, Publications - Where Artists Pay to Participate | ArtBusiness.com - This includes a list of various "pay to play" venues and publishers
• How to Research Artist Offers to Pay for Shows or Exposure  | ArtBusiness.com
• How's my Dealing? - Galleries - includes reviews by artists who consider they have been scammed

Target Market of the VANITY Gallery
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CHECK OUT the characteristics of the type of 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

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VANITY Gallery Marketing 
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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.

Importantly - exhibitions at such galleries often get no coverage by reputable art critics

Not all vanity galleries are B&M galleries on the street - some Vanity Operations 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)

Got a solicitation from yet another vanity gallery, this one in NYC. It sounded 'too good to be true'. I checked it out. I found your website during the research and have bookmarked it and recommended it to other artists.
A reader of this website

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VANITY 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)

Vanity Galleries typically do not have "gallery artists" although they may well try to suggest that they do.

• 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

• ​Should Artists Show their Art in “Vanity” Galleries? | by Jason Horejs Reddotblog - this focuses on a trend for galleries to rent out space to artists​ and why you need to distinguish between pay to display galleries and vanity galleries.
• Vanity Galleries versus Co-ops - Art Biz Blog - valuable only for the comments from artists about the relative pros and cons of the different venues​

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VANITY 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.
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REFERENCE:

• Questions to Ask Galleries Before You Deliver Your Artwork | Renee Phillips - Exhibiting in a gallery, whether they charge an entry fee or not, requires an investment on your part.

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 say they 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?

ADVANCED FINANCIALS CHECKLIST

1. Are they a company? Access their filed documents online and check out the people / organisation you are dealing with
2. Does their gross turnover mean they must pay VAT (i.e. the sign of a serious business)? (UK/Europe Only)
3. If a company, access their accounts online and check out whether they are making money and in the black.
   

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VANITY 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:

• Professional Guidelines: Consignment Contract - Harriete Estel Berman
• Protecting Your Art with Paper: Invoices and Art Consignment Forms | Huffington Post

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.

Protecting Your Art with Paper: Consignment Agreements, Invoices and Other Basic Legal Forms from NYFA on Vimeo.

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.
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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
  
  • EITHER 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

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