Selling work
Exhibiting in the Summer Exhibition offers artists an unrivalled opportunity to sell their work. Thousands of visitors – including influential art world figures and collectors of contemporary art – pass through the galleries during the show’s ten-week run.
Guests at the Summer Exhibition Preview Party, 2009. Photos: MPP Image Creation
The opening Preview Party is a glamorous event which attracts substantial press coverage and provides guests, many of whom are serious buyers, with the first opportunity to purchase work. In 2011 more than 18,000 visitors attended the subsequent Buyers’ Day and Friends’ Previews and almost 5000 works, including editions, were sold during the course of the run.
All of the sales information is passed on, so that the artist can issue an invoice for the balance of payment and capture the buyer’s details.
Practical selling information for artists
The sales procedure is as follows:
- The artist is the seller of the work and sets the price.
- The Academy levies a commission of 30% (+VAT) on all sales and a deposit equal to this commission is taken at the point of sale.
- The details of all exhibited works and unframed editions are published in the List of Works.
- Upon notification of a sale from the Academy, the artist should contact the buyer to formally accept the ‘Offer to Purchase’ and request the balance of payment.
- Once the artist has received the balance of payment, he or she should issue the Removal Order (which is sent to the artist by the Academy) to the buyer.
- If a buyer has purchased an exhibited work, he or she will be able to collect it from the Academy, on presentation of the signed Removal Order, when the exhibition closes.
- If the buyer has purchased an unframed edition, the artist would usually send the print to the purchaser upon receipt of the balance; however arrangements vary depending on circumstances.
