I have just been contacted by a large gallery in San Francisco but their commission seems unusually high to me. I am used to giving a 50% cut to the local galleries here in Copenhagen. However,they say they will take my price and add 1.5 times the cost plus framing. Is this typical for large galleries in major U.S. cities? I would appreicate your input.

I live in New Orleans, and the galleries that I personally know here charge 50% commission... See if you can negotiate with them, 50% should be plenty for them and only fair to you.

I would never give more than a 50% commission, and always inquire, delicately, how they will earn their commission. It pains me to know of galleries who charge such a high cut and hardly do any work to earn it.

Most galleries I know want the artist's price to remain the same across the board, whether selling through them, in a competition, another gallery, or directly to buyers. So if you charge your customers directly, $1000, the gallery should be charging $1000 as well. This is called the retail price. Is the gallery framing your work? If you are supplying the frame, I would try to get the cost of the frame for yourself (i.e., the gallery gets 50% minus the cost of the frame; this is only fair, since you have paid this out of pocket). Also, who is paying to ship the paintings to the gallery? That is cutting into your profit as well.

Negotiating with galleries always seems to be such a delicate process though. I haven't figured it out yet.

Thanks Paul for your info.

The gallery is framing my work themselves with their costs added to the sale so the customer pays not me. They have asked me to take my paintings off the strecher bars and ship only the canvas in tubes so the cost is much less, however, so far I have paid for shipping. I didn't know one could ask them to cover this cost.

They do have a premium location on Fisherman's Wharf so I figured that accounted for the large commission. I will try to renegotiate when I visit them in Sept.

You can ask for anything you want, but the trick is figuring out the balance between what is too much versus what is not enough to ask for. You have to figure out what is most important to you, and what you need to charge to get a return on the time and materials you have invested in the painting and the administrative costs. If it isn't financially beneficial now, can you benefit from the exposure the gallery will give you? Can they offer you a one-person or small group exhibit during the year? Most galleries won't pay for the artist to ship paintings to them. You should ask about anything there is ambiguity on. Don't assume anything, including location. If you're on their mailing list and check online, that will give you a good idea of how they market their shows. It's one thing to be in a good location, it's another to get the right customers in the door to buy your work.

You are handing over your work from such a far distance, it's important to clarify anything you have questions about and to have good communication. If you can't negotiate a smaller commission now, perhaps after your work is selling there, you can re-negotiate for a smaller commission. High selling artists can be offered commissions as low as 15 percent.