Galleries
You may end up paying a little more but the service they offer will repay itself in terms of satisfaction and investment. Galleries offer the huge advantage that you have the works in front of you and you can take them home there and then!Fairs and shows, individual and collective exhibitions
Art fairs and shows let you meet a lot of artists and make comparisons. If you’ve already made your choice of artist and you know what their work fetches, all that remains is to call your friendly bank manager... You can always try to negotiate as the prices asked are often higher than the works would normally go for. The very high cost of exhibiting or gaining media exposure would largely explain this difference.Artists’ workshops or studios:
Buying this way allows you to make the artist’s acquaintance; the price would be what the artist asks. However, if the artist normally sells to a gallery owner or to a middle-man you can expect the artist to give you a discount on their gross margin, usually around 50%.Open house - open to the public.
This is when a group of artists get together to open their workshop or studio to the public on the same day.Internet
Impossible some years ago, there are now, to an astonishing extent, an ever-growing number of transactions on the internet. To begin with internet sales were only low-price, low-value items but nowadays they are the ones which are getting a high gross rate. Please note that you will mainly find amateur artists and mostly figurative works...