For nearly two years now, Chicago art booster Paul Klein has been running a for-profit mini business school for artists. Klein Artist Works is a three-month webinar that meets weekly for lectures by guest experts, studio tours, and advice from Klein on how to maximize the potential and avoid the pitfalls of an art-world career. It has a broad reach, attracting students from places as distant as Norway and Hong Kong.
This was followed by a scan of a gallery receipt issued to an artist for work sold in August 2006. “Here’s what happened,” Klein wrote. “The gallery paid to have 5 works of art framed, sold one, split the proceeds 50/50 and then deducted the cost of framing from the artist’s share. This is a horrible business practice!”
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I’m steamed.
Nothing quite gets me going more than people who take advantage of artists. I teach a course (Klein Artist Works) because I want to see artists empowered, more respected, more influential in our society, and making a whole lot more money.
One of the artists who’s taken my course shared this receipt from a gallery she was represented by. Policies/behavior revealed here are hogwash and unethical.
One of those who didn’t need to look the gallery up is mosaic artist Jeffrey Conroy, who says he’s been getting Klein’s ArtLetter e-mails for “a long time” but doesn’t often open them. When “the subject of how a gallery cheated an artist came up,” however, he did, and was startled to find that “the address and phone number [of the dealer] are a gallery that I’ve worked with for about 12 years.”
“As all of you know I’m not a fan of Art Dealers—but I’ve known Ann Nathan for 35 years and done MUCH business with her and NEVER found her anything but above board, honest, kind and generous…….she is one of the good ones…and this public mistreatment of her is nothing short of vile……..”
