Seeking Gallery Representation
Target Audience
Emerging and mid-career realist artists looking to understand the gallery system and pursue meaningful representation.
Workshop Description
This workshop demystifies the professional gallery world and equips artists with the knowledge to pursue representation with confidence. Over two hours (with a 15-minute break), participants will explore the differences between gallery types, levels of artist involvement, and the benefits and expectations of formal representation.
Topics include pricing work for gallery sales, contract considerations, representation etiquette, and navigating risks such as exclusivity and creative compromise. The workshop also offers insider tips on framing, print sales, and what galleries do—and don’t do—for their artists.
Artists will leave with a comprehensive understanding of how to build gallery relationships that support and advance their careers.
There will be an open Q&A at the end.
Learning Objectives
Participants will:
Learn the pros and cons of vanity galleries, co-ops, and traditional galleries.
Understand the stages of gallery involvement: group shows, affiliation, and representation.
Know what to expect from galleries and what will still be the artist’s responsibility.
Learn best practices for pricing work with commission and discount structures.
Understand contract obligations, exclusivity clauses, and inventory management.
Gain confidence in professional etiquette and artist-gallery communication.
Materials Provided
Time Format
2-hour workshop + 15-minute break 3PM-5PM EST
Available online via Zoom
Instructor: Missy Dunaway
Missy Dunaway is an interdisciplinary artist based in Portland, Maine. Her work blends painting with research, exploring intersections of art, literature, history, and nature. Her projects have explored Anatolian textiles, classical painting techniques, ornithology, and Shakespearean literature.
She earned a BFA with a concentration in Painting and Material & Visual Culture from Carnegie Mellon University in 2010. Soon after, she moved to Istanbul on a Fulbright Fellowship to study the earliest Anatolian textiles, beginning several years of international travel through artist residencies. Her research culminated in a collection of paintings that were exhibited in Istanbul, Berlin, and the United States. Her sketchbooks from this period were later published in 2021 as The Traveling Artist: A Visual Journal.
Missy is also a recipient of a Folger Institute Fellowship, a scholarship to the Academy of Realist Art Boston, and she was selected as the inaugural Four Seasons Envoy. Her illustrations appear on book covers for authors including Ruskin Bond and Raja Rao, and she penned 21 articles for the Folger Shakespeare Library’s blog, Shakespeare & Beyond.