Contact and other
information for art dealers

Introduction
Address
Extra Biographies
Painting Transfer Policy
Print Return Policy
Other Issues
Phone

To order by phone, call (604) 985-4262.


Email

To email, click on the Tony Max logo.

New dealers are welcome. Comments, suggestions and questions are also welcome.
Shipping Rates For Southwestern
British Columbia

Orders of more than $270........Free

Orders ranging from $217 and $270...........$3

Orders ranging from $163 and $216...........$6

Orders ranging from $109 and $162...........$9

Orders ranging from $55 to $108.........$12

Orders of $54 or less.........$15



Address
Please make cheques or money orders payable to:
Tony Max Art

The mailing address is:
144 West 20th Street
Suite 310
North Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada
V7M 1Y4


 
Please add the G.S.T. to all payments.
Extra biographies or replacement of certificate/biographies
Please mail a $5 cheque or money order (plus six percent Goods and Services tax for destinations in Canada) to replace lost or damaged certificates of authenticity/biographies or to receive a brief artist biography.

The money helps to defray my costs of postage, handling and printing of the fade-resistant, giclée-quality certificate/biographies and biographies.

Please note that a certificate/biography is included with every limited edition print that Tony Max sells.
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Painting Transfer Policy
If a gallery owner requests on behalf of his or her customer that a painting should be brought to the gallery when the painting is already under a consignment contract at another gallery, there is a $150 to $200 (plus GST) pre-paid, non-refundable fee per painting for having paintings the transferred from the source gallery to the destination gallery within Metro Vancouver.


The price depends on the distance to be traveled. In most cases the price is $150 rather than $200


The fee is charged because some customers who say that they want to buy a particular painting or paintings sometimes change their minds after the artwork has been brought to the gallery for them (or they want to see the painting to decide if they want to buy it, and decide after they see it that they don't want to buy it). Because of this lack of commitment, the artist wants to be compensated for his work and the disruption of the exhibition arrangements at the source gallery, and for the arrangement of transportation of the painting(s) and negotiation of a new contract at the destination gallery – processes which can take most of a day's work to accomplish for each such transfer.


It's also to compensate for the strife that's sometimes caused. For example, for months Max had consigned some paintings at Downstairs Gallery in West Vancouver. At that time, Max got a request from a gallery in downtown Vancouver (a gallery that also represented his art) to have one of the paintings brought to the downtown gallery because the customer wanted to buy it.


When Max informed the West Vancouver gallery owner that he wanted to pull out the painting, the gallery owner was very angry. "I might as well close my doors" permanently, he told Max, because if all of his artists did that with consigned art works, the time, work and money invested in trying to sell the art would be for naught.


Max explained rationally that if a customer of his requested one of Max's from the other gallery, that Max would oblige with that transfer as well; he would arrange for the transfer of paintings requested by his customers at the gallery in West Vancouver from the gallery exhibiting Max's paintings in downtown Vancouver, so that in the long run there should have been no net loss of Max's paintings and no net loss of income at either gallery, since each gallery was just as likely as the other to have customers requesting the transfer of Max's paintings to the gallery in which its customers were shopping. However, the gallery co-owner (who often displayed a lack of common sense) didn't see the obvious logic of that argument. As a result, when Max removed the painting to the other gallery where the customer who requested it purchased it, the gallery owner in West Vancouver remained angry at Max and the issue remained a sore point for the gallerist for a long time.



The transfer of paintings from one gallery to another is subject to the discretion of the artist, because one or more customers at the source gallery might be interested in purchasing the particular painting at the same time that the transfer is requested by the destination gallery.


An example of this happened when a customer at Davie Art Shop in Vancouver's West End (which Max subsequently won a fraud lawsuit against) had a customer who put a deposit on Max's "Ambleside Driftwood" original. In the meantime, the co-owner of Downstairs Gallery in West Vancouver (who I pointed out in the above passage often lacked lacked common sense) again showed poor judgment; he had sold the "Ambleside Driftwood" painting and not informed Max promptly, so that when Max phoned the West Van gallery to request the transfer of the painting to Davie Art Shop where the lady had made her deposit, the painting had already been sold at Downstairs Gallery in West Vancouver!


(One can see from these examples of the complications involved in selling consigned art why Max charges for painting transfers and why his consignment contracts for his paintings keep getting longer and more involved)


The source gallery owners and customers have priority over the destination gallery because :
1) the painting is already under the auspices of a negotiated consignment contract at the source gallery,
2) the painting may not have been displayed a long enough time at the source gallery for the customers at that source gallery to have sufficient time to decide about purchasing the painting(s),
3) the transfer often upsets the source gallery owner, because he or she has already put considerable time and effort into selling the painting(s) and therefore doesn't want to relinquish the painting(s) to another gallery (as explained above) and
4) transfer requires disruption of the consignment contract at the source gallery, packaging of the painting, arrangement of transportation and negotiation of a new consignment contract at the destination gallery – all of which take time, labour and money.


This pre-paid deposit policy discourages customers from requesting the transfer of paintings on a whim. The artist gets frequent requests from galleries to transfer paintings from another gallery to their gallery, without a commitment from the gallery owner or the galleries' customers that they will buy the artwork after the artist has made the transfer.


Gallery Owners Don't Tend to Co-operate With One Another and Instead Put Onus on Artists to Make Originals Available to Customers

Unfortunately, many dealers don't want to refer their customers to other galleries that host the paintings, because they fear losing customers to the other galleries – even when the other galleries are far away and don't offer the same services. (For example, one gallerist was loathe to send a customer to another gallery that was a few miles away across town to look at a consigned Max painting, even though the other gallery wasn't a competitor for picture framing because the other gallery didn't offer picture framing, which was the main source of income for the fearful gallery owner. )


Max has offered gallery owners the chance to split commissions if a gallery refers its customer to another gallery where the customer buys one or more of Max's paintings, but all except one of those proposals were rejected by the gallery owners and so far none of the paintings of his that have sold have involved gallery owners splitting commissions.


Because of this lack of co-operation among gallery owners, some gallerists put the onus on artists such as Max to pull the paintings out of other galleries where the paintings are consigned, rather than referring their customers to the galleries where the paintings are exhibited. Because most gallery owners don't want to co-operate with one another, they are therefore asking the artist to go to extra effort (to transfer the paintings) – without a guarantee that he will be compensated for his work.


The artist calculates that without his policy of a deposit, he would spend a week or two every year shuttling his paintings among galleries on the whims of customers who want to look at the paintings and who usually decide not to buy the paintings once they see them, and every such shuttle reduces his profit on the sales of the paintings and takes his time away from creating new work.


In most cases the paintings are just as likely to sell in the source galleries as the destination galleries, so it makes sense to leave them at the source galleries unless the galleries or their customers pay Max for arranging to have them moved.


Also, if gallery owners are certain that their customers are committed to buy the paintings that they want to have transferred, they have the choice of buying the painting(s) from Max so they can offer them for sale to their customers, but so far no gallery owners requesting a transfer of a painting that's exhibited in another gallery have offered to buy the painting(s) in question.


On the one hand they claim that their customers will certainly by the paintings that customers have said they want to buy. When Max has stipulated that he wants a non-refundable deposit to compensate him for having a painting brought in from another gallery, some of the gallery owners have become angry, saying that the customers wouldn't make a deposit without seeing he painting first.


The gallery owners are unwilling to "put their money where their mouths are" by buying the painting from the artist at this point. This indicates that they are not as certain as they claim that the retail customers will make the purchase. (If they're certain – as they claim – that the customers would buy the painting in question, they'd be willing to buy the painting at that point to facilitate the transfer of the painting, but none of them so far have been willing to do so.
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Print Return Policy

Some gallerists asked – even angrily demanded – that Max buy back prints they bought from him years earlier.


He has even been asked by a gallery owner to buy back a severely damaged print two years after selling it to the gallery owner, even though it was in mint condition when he sold it to the gallery.


Artist Expected to Have Print Return Policy Six Times More Generous Than That of Multi-Billion-Dollar International Corporations

Another art dealer angrily demanded that Max buy back a large, undamaged print of medium popularity that he had bought from Max a year and-a-half earlier (about 18 months after buying it.) Max noted that the most generous return policy he's found at any stores has been at some of the chain stores that are part of large, multinational corporations. An example is Home Depot, which allow returns up to 90 days after the purchases of products.


Companies like Home Depot have billions of dollars worth of sales every year and can therefore afford such generous return policies. (in 2007, Home Depot had sales of $77.3 billion, and net earnings of $4.2 billion!


Max, on the other hand, is running a small, one-man sole proprietorship, and therefore he doesn't see why his product return deadline should be six times more generous than the most generous return policies of large, rich powerful, multinational, multi-billion dollar corporations.


Max's return policy is to buy back prints at his own discretion.


Max notes that the art dealer who angrily demanded that Max buy back the print that the gallery owner had purchased from him a year and-a-half earlier was unswayed by Max's reasoning. Max tried to reason with the dealer that there was nothing wrong with the print and that it was a print that sells fairly well. He also tried to explain that Max would have to recalculate his income tax figures for the previous year to buy back the print, and that that would be inconvenient.


The art dealer remained pig-headed and hot-headed and wouldn't even listen to Max's explanations. He continued to interrupt Max, and in a loud voice hypocritically called him "small-minded" and "petty" and "from now on when I think of Tony I'll think of someone who's small-minded and petty". The dealer even repeated those insults when he was standing several feet away from Max, with a gallery customer standing halfway between them! The dealer then said, "Please leave. I'll call you when I need a print." In other words, the rude implication was, "Don't call me; I'll call you," and the dealer was figuratively kicking Max out of his shop. Max found this to be especially insulting and inappropriate because Max had been the top-selling artist at the gallery for at least two years and had generated significant profits for the company!


Also, on previous occasions when Max had tried to buy back slow-selling prints from the dealer to make way for better-selling prints and increase overall sales for himself and for the art dealer as well, the dealer had refused every time, and on previous occasions when the dealer had asked Max to buy back prints that he thought were too slow-selling, Max had obliged, so this was the first instance in which Max had refused to buy back a print. Max had always been the one to compromise, but the first time when he refused to compromise on a print buy-back, the gallery owner caused an angry, insulting tirade in the presence of a customer and a staff member. Also of note was the fact that every several months the dealer would ask Max – apparently on a whim – to buy back prints from him, when there was nothing wrong with the prints.

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Other Issues
Artists Have the Right to Find Their Own Customers

Some gallerists have expressed anger when learning that Tony Max sells directly to some retail customers.

However, there is no need for this anger.

Max pledges not to solicit business from customers of the galleries that are doing a good job of promoting his art.

However, if the customers have learned about his art through this Web site, he has the right to try to sell directly to those customers, because the Web site is entirely his own enterprise and is a separate venue from the galleries.

There is no conflict of interest.

Max does not try to bypass his galleries by soliciting business from their customers, as long as the galleries are loyal to him, honest with him and work hard to promote his art.


Max is committed to the galleries who are committed to him. Max respects gallery owners who respect him.
Max defends galleries against unfair attacks by customers

Tony Max defends the rights of art galleries whose owners and staff are loyal to him. A few members of the public whom he's met have told him that art galleries don't deserve any share of profits on the odd occasion when Max sells to the public.

Max defended the galleries, explaining that the galleries provide him with valuable publicity and sales and have spent significant amounts of money and devoted significant amounts of gallery space to promote his art, and that therefore those galleries who are loyal to him and who work hard to promote his art deserve a share of income from Max's occasional private sales and that Max will not seek business directly from the galleries' customers, and will instead allow the customers and galleries deal with each other.
Many Gallery Owners Are Ignorant of and/or
Contemptuous of Artists' Rights. When it Comes to Divvying up the Art-Buyers' Market, Many Gallery Owners Fail to Acknowledge That Self-Employed Artists Have the Right to Find Their Own Customers


When farmers sell at public markets, they are legally and ethically entitled to do so without being chastised by the supermarkets that sell the farmers' food. (This is true whether or not the farmers' markets lure business away from the supermarkets, as long as the farmers haven't signed any agreements of exclusivity with the supermarkets.)


Farmers have the right to sell to the public at farmers' markets, as farmers are self-employed and the farmers are not employees of the supermarkets.

Similarly, fine artists have the right to their own marketing endeavours to attract their own customers, such as this Web site, since the artists are not employees of galleries and are therefore not bound by contracts of exclusivity unless such contracts have been signed by the artists.


The market for selling food is large (because everyone has to eat). Consequently, supermarkets are not particularly worried about losing a small fraction of their business to farmers' markets. But the art market is considerably smaller than the food market because art is not a life-and-death necessity, and therefore many art dealers are angered and feel betrayed when they find out that an artist they represent has sold directly to the gallery's customers and doesn't at least pass on a finder's fee to the gallery or even reveal to the art gallery owner or staff that the transaction has taken place.

Max is a self-employed businessman and entrepreneur who has not signed any contracts of exclusivity with any galleries, and therefore he is of course entitled to find his own customers separate from art galleries and there is no conflict of interest when Max sells directly to the public after screening his customers to make sure that they didn't learn about his art initially through one of the galleries that represent his work.

Also, Max has referred many of his own customers (that he got via his Web site and word of mouth) to the galleries in his stable for framing of the prints that the public bought from him, so the galleries therefore benefit from this referral business that they might not otherwise get.


Yet despite these facts, Max has encountered some gallery owners who fail to understand 1) that artists are self-employed free agents who are entitled to find their own customers if the customers haven't initially learned about his art through one of the galleries that represent his work and 2) that artist's Web sites such as this one benefit the galleries by referring customers back to the galleries – both to purchase art and to frame the art and therefore 3) his relationship with the art dealers is symbiotic; the art dealers provide business for the artist, and the artist in turn provides business for the dealers – and sometimes also providing spin-off business.



Fine Artists - Like Art Gallery Owners – Are Free Agents Who are Free to Find Their Own Clients

Max has pledged not only that he will not discount his art to the galleries' customers, but he goes one step further in respecting gallerists' by pledging not approach the galleries' customers to solicit business from them at all (unless, as explained elsewhere on this page, the galleries are delinquent or unethical in representing Max's art). He has told some of his dealers that – when he sells outside of galleries – he would sell only to consumers who hadn't discovered his art though any of the galleries that represent his art, yet some of those dealers still claim falsely and angrily that Max (and by implication other artists in general) don't have the right to sell at all to anyone except the galleries!


Is this the Soviet Union or Canada, Max asked himself? Since when do self-employed fine artists not have a right to develop their own sales and marketing initiatives outside of the art galleries that represent his work?


Max (like most self-employed fine artists) is a self-employed entrepreneur who took the risk to found and run his own company – a sole proprietorship registered with the British Columbia and Canadian federal governments. He owns his own company, yet some controlling gallery owners representing his art claim that he doesn't have a right to devise his own marketing strategies that don't include the galleries in the profits – even though those dealers haven't paid Max even one penny to fund his marketing initiatives such as his Web site. (The money the gallery owners pay the artist is for his prints and paintings; this Web site is a separate enterprise funded solely by the artist.as a sales tool.)
Art Dealers and Framers Don't Realize That They Benefit from Spin-off Sales by Promoting Artists' Art

It's also noteworthy that the galleries that sell art benefit from spin-off sales, and the more they promote an artist's art, the more spin-off sales they enjoy.


For example, a couple went to Prints Charming in the Kitsilano district of Vancouver intending to buy one of Max' paintings. Instead, after perusing the art at the gallery, it bought another artist's painting for about $1,500. Gallery owners in this situation would never consider contacting Max to inform him of the incidental sale and then pay him 50 percent of the proceeds.


On the other hand, if Max were to get a spin-off sale such as a commission from one of the gallery's customers (to paint a painting for that customer) many gallery owners would want Max to inform the gallery and to share to 50 percent of the proceeds with the gallery owner, and would accuse Max of deception if he didn't do so!


Another case of spin-off sales occurred when Max was at one of the galleries in his stable to make a sale. When he was at the gallery, a customer came in, asking for Tony Max prints. She was directed by the staff to look at his prints – some of which were framed and hanging on the walls, and some of which were exhibited in print bins. The customer shopped and decided to buy another artist's print instead of Max's, and she apologized to Max - who was still in the gallery – for doing so.


Again, in this situation, the gallery benefited from the spin-off business it got by promoting Max's art. But of course it didn't share with Max the profits it got from the sale, yet if Max got a spin-off sale from one of the gallery's customers, the gallery owner would want the artist to inform him of the deal and would want a share of the profit - or would want to artist to refuse the deal although – and if the artist made a private deal with the customer while excluding the gallery owner, the gallery owner would be incensed and accuse the artist of deception!

In fact that happened with this particular gallery owner. See section below.
Some Gallery Owners Accuse Artists of Deception for Making Spin-off Sales That Exclude Gallery Owners, Yet Hypocritically Gallery Owners Profit From Their Own Spin-off Sales That Exclude Artists

The gallery owner written about in the section above told Max that after he had discovered that one of his artists had made a private deal with one of the gallery's customers and shut the gallery owner out of the deal, he had cut off his business with that artist! So the art gallery owner was being hypocritical, controlling and vindictive, without even realizing it! Of course if he had gotten a spin-off sale as a result of promoting that artist's art, he would not even have thought of sharing the profit from the deal with that artist or even of informing her of the sale, yet he vindictively punished his the artist in his stable for making her own private spin-off sale that excluded him!


And some gallerists also feel they are entitled to a portion of artists' Internet sales revenue, even though artists' Web sites such as Max's are the artists' own enterprises that are separate from galleries (just as the galleries' selling of other artists' art is separate from their selling of Max's art and just as the galleries' framing business is separate from the promotion of Max's print business).


Some dealers apparently are so averse to losing sales to their artists that they would rather lose framing jobs than allow artists to get sales as a byproduct of the artists dealing with the galleries. They don't want artists to deal at all with the public, so instead of artists like Max finding his own customers for his prints and then referring those print owners (through this Web site, email and phone conversations with the customers) back to the galleries to get the prints framed, those controlling dealers would rather prevent any artist-public dealings. That is a short-sighted policy, because it means the dealers lose out on potential income. This is particularly so because a lot of people don't go to galleries, and artists like Max are able to garner some sales to those people through his Web site and then pass on the resulting framing jobs to the galleries.
A typical example of how the artist has boosted a gallery's business and yet been accused falsely of stealing its customers

Despite the important factors (in the above section) Max has been scolded by several gallery owners for finding his own customers and selling directly to those customers.


An example is a couple who found Max's art through his Web site, after searching with a search engine on the Internet. It was because of this Web site – which lists the galleries that represent Max's art (including the names, addresses, phone numbers, and maps and driving directions to the galleries) that the couple found about two galleries in their neighbourhood that represent Max's art.


After seeing the galleries' information on this Web site, the couple phoned the galleries to ask if particular prints of Max's were in stock. The gallery staff said, "no" and didn't offer to order the prints from Max so that the couple could look at the prints to decide which ones to buy. The couple phoned another gallery in their neighbourhood (another of the galleries advertised for free by Max on his Web site) and got the same response. Neither gallery offered to order the prints from Max that the customers were interested in seeing.


The couple then emailed Max to explain the situation. Max determined that the couple had found out about his art through his Web site – not any galleries – and that the galleries contacted hadn't made an effort to order the prints of interest so the customers could look at the actual prints before deciding.


The artist consequently arranged to have the couple meet him at his studio, where he sold the couple two prints. Several days later, the couple went to one of the two galleries to frame the prints.


When the gallery owner found out that Max had sold his prints to the customers, he said testily to Max, "I see that you sold some prints to my customers." Max replied, "No; they were my customers, who found out about me through my Web site – which is entirely my own enterprise, and I have a right to find my own customers."


But clearly the gallery owner was angry despite Max's explanation and the fact that 1) the customers found out about Max's art via his own Web site and therefore Max wasn't taking customers away from the gallery and 2) the gallery benefited from the sale because the customers went to the gallery to frame the prints after buying them from Max and 3) if it weren't for all of Max's work to develop and maintain his Web site, the customers wouldn't have found out about his art in the first place and wouldn't have subsequently given their framing job to the gallery which the gallery profited from and 4) the gallery was only buying about one print from Max annually, so it wasn't even doing much to promote his art and 5) when the customers had called the gallery to ask about the prints they were interested in, the gallery staff didn't serve the customers properly.


They didn't offer to buy the prints from Max so that the customers could look at the prints so they could decide which ones to buy and 6) the customers wanted to see seven prints, which would have cost the gallery owner about $700 to buy from Max, and Max has never had a gallery owner willing to spend that much money to buy prints from him on the speculation that the customer might buy one or two of them – and that's especially true because six of the seven prints were medium and large – which are harder to sell than the small ones because they're more expensive and not as popular with customers because they're bigger than the small prints.


The gallery owner had been in business for many years and therefore should have known that self-employed artists have every legal and moral right to seek and sell to their own customers if those customers are not being lured away from the galleries.


The gallery owner angrily accused the artist of stealing its customers and wasn't even willing to discuss the issue with the artist! He sarcastically said, "Whatever you think" to the artist and cut short the phone conversation.


This episode clearly exemplifies ignorance, unfairness, ungratefulness, arrogance and controlling attitude that some art dealers have towards artists regarding the often contentious issue of divvying up the art market.
Some Artists Are Unscrupulous

Max sympathizes with gallery owners who find out that the artists they represent try to solicit business from the galleries' customers if the galleries have invested a lot of time and effort and money to promote the artists' work and are doing a fine job of promoting the artists' work, especially because running art galleries and frame shops is becoming increasingly expensive due to increasing rents and taxes, and because of the labour shortage and increasing sales of art over the Internet, so it's unfair of the artists to then bypass bona fide gallery promoters by approaching the galleries' customers and cutting the gallery promoters out of the profits.


"Artists have been known to engage in the shady practice of secretly selling artwork to a dealer's client at a highly discounted rate," wrote art consultant and author Caroll Michels. "Although it does not happen often, it does happen, and once a dealer experiences a broken trust, he or she begins to suspect all artists of participating in such schemes." But Max contends that dealers should not tar all artists with the same brush; they should assume that artists are innocent before being proved guilty.
Many Artist-Dealer Conflicts Stem From Unfettered Power of the Dealers and Lack of Qualifications of Both Parties


Some gallery owners feel that because artists owe their livelihoods to them, that the galleries deserve an unwavering loyalty from the artists, even when some of them are mistreating the artists. It's true that most artists wouldn't be able to survive without the galleries that show their work. However, art dealers would also not be able to survive without artists!


Art consultant and author Caroll Michels blames both dealers and artists for troubles between the two parties. "Just as artists tend to forget that, to a great extent, a dealers' livelihood depends on an artist's work, dealers also forget, and they need to be reminded."


Additionally, the need for fine art is so great that if all of the galleries in existence were for some reason went out of business simultaneously, others would soon spring up to take their place, or some other form of art venues would spring up to fill the vacuum. It's been estimated that Americans alone spend about $4 billion every year on fine art. After filling people's basic needs, having fine art is an historic, strong instinctive need of humans to adorn their environments with; this innate drive dates back to the times of the cave people who drew pictures on the walls of their caves tens of thousands of years ago.


Artist and author Jo Hansen blames artists' lack of education for many of their troubles. "Artists are set up for difficult career adjustments by the omissions from art education, and by the self-image projected through the art sub-culture that discourages – and even scorns - attention to business management and competence in it." Naturally this set artists up for conflicts with art dealers – many of whom are themselves ill-qualified.


Art consultant and author Caroll Michels, who has worked with about 500 art galleries in New York City, blames a lack of training and arrogance for some dealers' poor relationships with artists. "Being an art dealer requires no particular qualifications. Anyone can become a dealer, and it seems apparent that anyone and everyone have become art dealers as witnessed by a general lack of good business and marketing skill, good business standards, and good business attitudes in the dealers' community at large. Also prevalent are a general lack of sensitivity toward artists and a lack of basic knowledge about art".


Michels go on to explain, "The instant respect, awe, and power gained by dealers are probably unparalleled in any other occupation....Some dealers...begin to believe that their reputations give them the right to make outrageous, irresponsible demands and give outrageous, irresponsible advice. These dealers also believe that reputation alone exempts them from the requirements of morality or integrity, let alone courtesy."
A Few Dealers Have Threatened Max and Insulted Him While Claiming to do Artist a Favour by Promoting His Art

Max cites another example of one of the "bad apples": an arrogant dealer who implied that he was doing Max a favour by buying, framing, promoting and selling his art made that insult in order to try to get Max to agree to sell his prints at a discount to the dealer. It was obvious to the artist that the I'm-doing-you-a-favour-by-representing-your-art claim is a lie that's said to gain concessions from the artist. Max has noticed that the I'm-doing-you-a-favour-by-representing-your-art tends to be expressed by the art dealers who nickel-and-dime their artists (by chronically asking for discounts, complaining about shipping fees and threatening to reduce or stop print purchases unless they get prints at a discount.


Some art dealers believe that they are doing artists such as Max a favour by promoting their art. Some dealers (the middlemen in the art transactions) have expressed this haughty attitude to Max, yet Max notes that he has never heard that haughty and insulting attitude from any of the art-buying public who bought his art. "I don't care about your art," said one of them condescendingly when Max complained about poor treatment. "I took you under my wings," said another one condescendingly when Max dared to ask that the price of his consigned paintings be raised to a price that was commensurate with the quality of the paintings, his renown and the prices of works of similar quality by artists of similar repute.



Dealers Threatened Max Yet Eagerly Solicited His Business

Two dealers threatened to stop or reduce purchases of prints from Max unless Max agreed to consign particular paintings to their respective art shops. Max was so insulted by the threats of one of those dealers that he stopped answering the dealer's phone calls. Yet the dealer kept calling to try to buy prints and get Max's painting consigned to his gallery. How could it be that the gallery owner was doing Max a favour by trying to promote his art? When Max give him the 'cold shoulder', the galleriest kept calling to try to do business with Max. Clearly, the self-interested gallerist kept calling Max to promote his own business – not to do Max any favours; Max had clearly indicated to the gallerist that he didn't need any favours from the galleriest, yet the galleriest kept 'bending over backwards' to try to get Max's merchandise! Interestingly, three dealers who threatened him also demanded exclusive jurisdictions for selling of Max's paintings.


Some art dealers believe that they are doing artists such as Max a favour by promoting their art. They (the middlemen in the art transactions) have expressed this haughty attitude to Max, yet Max notes that he has never heard that haughty and insulting attitude from any of the art-buying public who bought his art. "I don't care about your art," said one of them condescendingly when Max complained about poor treatment. "I took you under my wings," said another one condescendingly when Max dared to ask that the price of his consigned paintings be raised to a price that was commensurate with the quality of the paintings, his renown and the prices of works of similar quality by artists of similar repute.


The threatening spendthrifts tend to be the ones who chronically don't pay their bills on time, are more likely to be the ones who try to also squeeze more money out of their customers and suppliers.


They also tend to be the ones who ask for or even demand that the artists agree not to sell at any other galleries within a large geographical area surrounding his particular gallery (to give the dealer exclusivity in that neighbourhood - without guaranteeing that they would significantly and constantly promote the artist's work in return for the artist making such a concession of exclusivity. (In fact,in 2008, two dealers who were purchasing only about $100 or Max's art annually had the audacity to ask Max not to sell his art at any galleries near to their - giving the owners exclusive sales territories for Max' sprints in a large geographical zone - without promising in return to increase their purchases and promotion of his art. That was especially insulting and self-centered because Max's gallery sales are focused almost entirely within Metro Vancouver, yet those dealers asked to have major swaths of the city as their exclusive jurisdiction for Max's art without offering to dramatically promote his work in return!)


It's also remarkable that in most cases, the art dealers make more money from selling Max's art than Max does. Art dealers and picture framers get about 75 percent of the retail price of the framed prints, while the artist gets 25 percent, and in most cases, the price of the framing (which the artist doesn't get a share of). This is because Max has kept the prices of his prints low to keep them affordable. (Max has the lowest priced, highest quality giclees in southwestern British Columbia.) One gallery owner charged so much for one of his framing jobs (of one of Max's prints) that the price of the framed print was 11 times higher than the amount of money that Max had charged the gallery owner for the print! (Max had charge the gallery owner $54 for the small print, but the gallery owner priced of the framed print at over $600!) Although many dealers have low, competitive pricing for their framing and don't make much profit from picture framing, others are much higher and consequently their profits are also higher.


Max once ran into a former picture framing assistant who had been employed by of one of Max's top gallery customers who had a reputation for expensive framing. "You wouldn't believe how much money gallery owner X] made from your prints!" he quipped to Max. The gallery owner sold tens of thousands of dollars worth of Max's art prints and framing.

And even if art dealers and picture framers don't earn much money, fine artists tend to earn significantly less.

So many of Max's prints were sold at one art shop that the staff nicknamed one of its mouldings the "Tony Max moulding"!
Gallerists' Fears Are Overblown

Another remarkable note is art dealers' fears of artists selling directly to the galleries' customers are overblown; few people are willing to deal directly deal directly with artists because of the inconvenience. For one thing, they have to make an appointment to see the artist in his studio, and secondly, few people are willing to travel to his studio on the North Shore because of the time and distance involved.


Also, although some people prefer dealing directly with artists, others prefer having the buffer of an art gallery between them and the artists and the vast majority of art buyers never make any attempt to contact the artists whose work they buy through art galleries.


So Max doesn't get much business from direct sales to the public, and therefore gallerists' fears that he will take away their business are unfounded. Some fearful art gallery owners, however, have mental visions of their artists sucking major amounts of revenue away from them by trying to sell directly to their customers and will sometimes suspiciously ask the artists how much they sell directly to the public and express their fear, yet in almost all cases, the artists don't find out anything about the retail buyers are and there's no contact between the retail customers and the artists.


Another salient point on this matter is that the less galleries promote Max's work, the less likely the gallery's customers would be to come across Max's contact information, and the more that galleries promote artists' work, the more satisfied he is with the galleries' promotion of the artists' work, and therefore the less likely he is try to sell directly to those retail customers so as not to risk angering the gallery owners. So galleries promoting Max's work diligently and honestly have no reason to fear that he will sell directly to its customers.


The gallery owners who are fearful and/or disturbed about the artists they represent dealing directly with the public are also somewhat paranoid; the market of potential customers in Metro Vancouver is 2.25 million people, so there's no need for gallery owners and artists to squabble over customers.
Direct Sales to Galleries' Customers is a Legitimate Exception if Galleries are Delinquent and/or Unethical

Tony Max pledges not to approach his galleries' customers to sell to them directly, as long as the galleries are not being delinquent in serving their customers and are not being unethical or otherwise ornery to Max. For examples, see below.
Two Gallery Owners Angrily Refused to Show Artist's Catalogue to Their Customers


For examples of such delinquency, troublesomeness and lack of ethics, two of the gallery owners in Max's stable refused to ever show its customers the Tony Max catalogue or to tell its customers that the catalogue exists and that the gallery has a copy, even though Max published the catalogues to lend one to each of the galleries in his stable to use as a sales tool. (One of those gallerists even refused Max to have access his own catalogue when he was at the gallery and when he wanted to update his catalogue! That same dealer objected when Max, who had just published a new limited edition and then changed his mind about the edition size, wanted to go to the gallery to change the number on the print so that the numbers on all of the prints in the edition would be consistent. (Obviously she showed thereby that she didn't care about the quality of the art that the gallery sold.) Fortunately that oppressor has retired from the art industry in Vancouver!)
Art Dealer Demanded Max Remove Paintings' Prices From Web Site so he Could Skirt Legal Contract and Pocket the Extra Profit


One gallery owner who represented Max's paintings phoned him one day and furiously demanded that Max immediately remove his paintings' prices from Max's Web site and wouldn't take "no" for an answer or Max would have had to pull his paintings out of the gallery.


The gallery owner came up with the lame, fake excuse for demanding that Max remove the price of his consigned paintings from his Web site: that painting buyers didn't want people to know how much they paid for their paintings.


But the real reason for the angry demand was that the gallerist wanted to charge more for Max's paintings than he had legally agreed to by signing Max's contracts, and intended to pocket the extra profit illegally.


"If a dealer is involved in hanky-panky," wrote art consultant Carol Michells, "the last thing he or she wants an artist to know is the work's real selling price."


In order to keep the customer, Max reluctantly obliged, but later discovered that the gallery owner and manager conspired to sell one secretly profit illegally by selling one of Max's paintings for an inflated price and pocketing the money (just as Max had suspected the gallery owner was plotting to do). Max was outraged and withdrew his remaining paintings and services from the gallery.
Two Gallerists Removed Max's Frames From his Paintings to Sell Them to Their Customers Without his Permission or Knowledge!


But before he withdrew his paintings and catalogue, that gallery owner perpetrated another fraud. He had a customer who wanted a frame that Tony Max had attached to one of his paintings that was consigned at the gallery. the customer wanted the frame for to go with a painting that was the same size as Max's painting. The gallery owner determined that the frame was no longer available to buy, so he secretly took Max's frame off of Max's painting, attached the frame to the painting that the customer wanted and sold the painting and Max frame to the customer, and didn't tell Max about this! Then, one day Max was in the gallery and saw that the frame was missing from his painting. When he confronted the gallery owner, the gallery owner claimed that the frame was his, and the Max would have to pay him for the gallery owner to provide a similar frame for the painting!


The artist was of course angry about the arrogant deception. He complained about it to another of the gallery owners that was exhibiting Max's consigned paintings. The second gallery owner sounded sympathetic, and told Max that the other gallery's actions "border on fraud". Max was dumbfounded one day several months later when he went to that second art gallery owner's gallery and discovered that that gallery owner had done the same thing! He, too, had taken a frame off of one of Max's consigned paintings and attached to another artist's paintings and not told Max about it or asked his permission!

Max confronted the gallery owner and accused him of hypocrisy for accusing the other gallery owner of nearly committing fraud. The gallery owner came up with some lame, nonsensical excuse, claiming that he thought that switching the frames would make both paintings more saleable. Max demanded that if the painting didn't sell, that his frame should be put back onto his painting. He felt that the frame that the gallery owner had put onto his painting was inappropriate; it was a garish green. But the painting did sell a few months later, fortunately.

Some gallery staff have told customers that some of the Max limited editions were sold out when they weren't, because they didn't take a moment to read the pertinent information in Max's catalogue and some have misinformed their customers in other respects about Max's art by not taking the time to read the catalogue or phone or email Max when they have a question.

Some galleries don't have any Max prints exhibited on their walls; they have only one or two or three prints hidden in print bins along with hundreds of other prints (and some don't keep any in stock at all) and don't show his catalogue to customers or mention Max when customers ask for local scenes and only make a purchase from Max once in a blue moon.

Some are sloppy by not putting Max's catalogue updates in Max's catalogue after Max has mailed the catalogues to them, or make messes of the catalogue by keeping old information in them as well as the new information, thereby confusing themselves and their customers.

(Max has mailed two sets of catalogue updates to two separate galleries, only to find out on visiting the galleries that the updates were nowhere to be found and the gallery staff claimed that they had never received them. The galleries had received them; Max has confirmation of this from the post office tracking information, and in one of these cases in which the gallerist claimed he hadn't received the catalogue, it mysteriously showed up months later somewhere in the piles of stuff at the gallery.)

Some galleries have a high turnover of staff, and when new employees are hired, some of them don't educate the staff about Max's art or to tell them which of his prints are in stock or that the gallery has a Max catalogue on hand and where the catalogue is in the gallery, and don't bother to tell the staff that they should tell customers that Max's prints that aren't in stock can be ordered. As a result, some galleries that officially represent Max's art have staff that don't even know his name! (It's an uphill battle for artists to gain recognition and respect and sales!)

Some gallery owners have Max's prints scattered here
and there instead organized in a group, and scatter and lose the certificates of authenticity that go with each prints and then expect the artist to mail replacement certificates at no cost to them.
Manager Lied by Claiming He Showed Catalogue to Customers, But Later Claims he Never Had a Catalogue!


One gallery manager claimed in repeated phone conversations with Max that he had Max's catalogue on hand and claimed that he frequently showed it to customers, and claimed that customers weren't buying despite his purported sales efforts.


One day Max dropped by unexpectedly at the gallery, which was in a shopping mall. He found the gallery manager pacing up and down the hall outside of the gallery. The shop was empty of customers. The mnager claimied that business was slow and that he had nothing to do.


Max asked to retrieve his catalogue. The manager claimed that he had never had the catalogue and that he had never claimed that he had had it! So he had lied repeatedly when Max had phoned him and he had claimed repeatedly that he was working hard to promote Max's art and show Max's catalogue to the gallery's customers. In fact he hadn't been representing it at all! (Fortunately that manager was later laid off when the gallery closed and is no longer working in the art industry – at least not in Vancouver where Max's art is represented by art galleries.)

Max has had some reports from retail customers that their basic needs weren't being served by some of the galleries, as outlined above (either because the galleries didn't have the time or manpower, or simply because they didn't care – or for all of those reasons).

Max also heard about a customer who called a gallery that was exhibiting Max's paintings. The gallery owner who answered the phone quickly changed the topic by promoting another artist's art instead of Max's, even though the customer who called the gallery had expressed a particular interest in Max's paintings.

One gallery owner representing Max's art even told Max disdainfully, "I don't care about your art"! Unfortunately, this bad attitude of many gallery owners toward artists is prevalent. Max believes that the main reason is because artists are "a dime a dozen" and gallery owners know that if they drop a particular artist, that artist's art can easily be replaced by someone else's. However, this haughty, cavalier abusive attitude of many gallerists naturally doesn't make it easy for artists to treat those dealers respectfully, and it sets up a stage for troublesome relationships.
Max Ordered by Gallery Owner to Stay out of Gallery Representing His Art!

Another gallery owner, after learning that Max had dropped in at her gallery in Surrey, British Columbia, for the first time, to see his prints that she had purchased from him (which was exhibited at the gallery) and to briefly meet the staff, ordered Max not to go there again, so that he wouldn't distract the staff! Max was so insulted by the impudent treatment that he withdrew his catalogue and refused to deal with that dealer again.


Members of the public were welcome to visit the gallery, yet one of the artists represented by the gallery was barred simply for dropping in once and chatting briefly with the staff! (It's not only insulting treatment of an artist, but also poor salesmanship; any gallery that is proud of the art it sells will spend some time getting to know the artist to learn about him or her so that it can tell its customers about the artist and his or her art, and thereby increase sales.


Not surprising to Max, the gallery folded a few years later; Max suspects that it may have been because of the poor attitude of the gallerist; her treatment of Max demonstrated that she cared only about money.


The gallery owner showed a lack of business savvy in representing Max's art. "Few dealers understand that they could sell more work," wrote art consultant Carol Michells, "and at higher prices, if they took the time to help the public understand an artist's vision and the multi-layered process and rigorous discipline involved in creating visual art – from conceptualization to actualization."


Not only did the gallery owner fail take advantage of the opportunity to educate her staff about Max's art, so as to enhance the gallery's sales and the satisfaction of her staff and customers, she cavalierly and disrespectfully rejected it.


(Another indication of this is that the gallery owner only cared about money and that she discriminated against Max for being a lesser known artist is that she made a hoopla when Robert Bateman came to the gallery; of course Robert Bateman got treated like a rock star because there were lots of money to be drummed up when for the gallery for hosting one of his appearances because he's such a big celebrity in the art business, but when Tony Max – who was regarded as a minor artist compared to Bateman – made an appearance, he got shooed away!)


Max contends that every gallery that is proud of its work should respect all of its artists, regardless of their fame, and that to order one of the artists not to visit the gallery even once is an abominable insult.
Apathetic Manager Blames 'Karma' for a Lack of Sales

At another gallery that represented Max's art, only about one – and sometimes none – of his prints were exhibited for clients to view. Max encouraged the gallery manager to try to increase the sales of Max's prints at that gallery by suggesting that the gallery manager have more of Max's prints framed and exhibited. The gallery manager refused, implying that he was making a great effort to sell Max's art, and then blamed 'karma' for the lack of sales. Max responded that less than a mile away, another gallery had bought 15 of Max's prints, framed them, exhibited them in a group on one of its walls, and as a result to that effort, 14 of the prints had sold within three months. The lackluster gallery manager became angry and defensive, because Max had exposed the real reason for the lack of sales: a lack of effort! 'Karma' clearly was just a convenient but lame excuse for apathy on the part of the gallery manager.


Some gallerists also don't want to bother custom ordering Max's prints when their customers want to look at the prints before deciding on purchasing, and will only order prints when customers make a commitment to buy the unseen prints (and some won't even bother to tell customers that they can order the prints).


An example is Davie Art Shop. The owner, Philip Tran (a part-time Christian pastor) insulted Max by claiming that he was doing Max a favor by buying Max's prints, frequently complained to Max about having to pay delivery charges and frequently asked for discounts, Max later won a fraud lawsuit against Tran. Max claims the right to sell directly to the customers of such abusive gallery owners that have defrauded him or have otherwise seriously mistreated him. Max sold two paintings privately to customers of Davie Art Shop on Davie Street in Vancouver after winning his fraud lawsuit against Davie Art Shop's owner, Philip Tran. Artists have no reason to be loyal to gallery owners who are not loyal them.


Gallerists who who are greedy, insulting, sloppy, impudent, dishonest and/or otherwise unprofessional or whose service is grossly inadequate – cannot then expect the artists whose work they supposedly represent not to try compensate for those gallerists' shortcomings. When the retail customers of those galleries – some of whom are frustrated by the poor service at those particular galleries – go directly to the artists, the artists should not be criticized for serving them.

Conversely, the gallery owners who are well organized, respectful and who do a professional, fine job of representing Max's art and who keep a small number of his most popular prints in stock and readily show Max's catalogue to customers and order prints from Max when the customers show an interest in seeing particular prints that aren't in stock needn't be concerned that he will siphon off their customers.

In a nutshell, galleries that are respectful of Max can expect that Max will in turn be respectful of them.
More Max Prints on the Market Mean Higher Profits for Picture Framers and Art Dealers

Having the artist finding his own customers to the public is beneficial to the framing industry. An example is sales to distant locations. A customer recently ordered three prints from the Web site, using Paypal. The customer lives in Ottawa. She kept one of the prints and gave the other two to a friend. Consequently, one or more picture framers in Ottawa profited by framing the three Max prints. If it weren't for this Web site, the customer wouldn't have found the prints and bought them, and therefore the picture framers wouldn't have gotten the framing business.


Also, more Tony Max prints there are on the market, the more the demand for the prints will grow. Like pebble dropped into a pond, the ripples keep expanding. The more Max prints there are on the market, the more people will seek the prints and therefore there will be more and more people going to the art galleries to buy his art, which means that the galleries' and picture framers' profits will continue to growl.


So making prints available on this Web site is a win-win-win situation; Max wins by selling more prints, picture framers and art dealers win by selling more art and framing, and the art buying public wins by getting more of the art it wants.
The artist is filling a gap by offering his art to the public

Another point is that galleries that sell Max's art are welcome to set up their own comprehensive, up-to-date marketing of his prints through their own Web sites. No galleries have done this because there's so much work involved. Most galleries don't even have their own Web sites because of all the work and expense involved, so the galleries don't have the right to tell Max (or any other artists) not to fill the gap by finding his own customers through this Web site.


Max is filling a need by offering the art buying public (that are not already familiar with his work through art galleries) a chance to buy through this Web site. There are a lot of people in southwest British Columbia (and other locations) looking for good art depicting the region, and as Max has been told by many art dealers, it's hard for people to find such art - and even more difficult to find such good art at reasonable prices.


Also, the art market in Vancouver is relatively small; if there were enough galleries doing a great, consistent job of selling a lot of Max's art that he could make a decent living, he wouldn't have felt the need to devise his own marketing and sales efforts such as this Web site. Although several galleries have enthusiastically bought a lot of art from Max and done a terrific job of promoting his work, there hasn't been a single gallery that has consistently done so during the 20 years in which Max has been a fine artist in Vancouver. Some galleries have bought large numbers of prints sporadically and others that have bought small numbers of prints sporadically, but none have supported Max significantly and consistently throughout the span of his fine art career, and yet some of the dealers expect Max to to loyal to them 100 percent of the time and not come up with his own marketing initiatives that don't involve the galleries getting a cut of the profits, and obviously that's unfair. The dealers expect 100 percent loyalty to the artist without any of them having given 100 percent loyalty to the artist.


And as the Internet expands, people are turning increasingly to the Internet to make art purchases, so the artist is taking advantage of a societal trend that is unstoppable by offering his art on this Web site and no other gallerists have been willing to take advantage of the opportunity to create their own comprehensive and up-to-date sales and marketing venue for Max's art.


Also, Max is not alone in selling his art to galleries (a wholesale business) while simultaneously offering his art at the retail level to the buying public. There are tens of thousands of other prominent artists who do so, and have done so for many years. Many of them sell to the public through their Web sites, for example, and as self-employed businesspeople, they have every right to do so and there is nothing unethical about it.
Abuse by art resellers is not limited to prints and galleries


As with his prints, one of the dealers who wanted to represent Max's paintings told him he mustn't sell to the public and must sell his paintings only through art galleries.

When art dealers tell artists that they must sell their art only to galleries and not to the art-buying public, it implies by extrapolation that they must not engage in any sales initiatives of their own to solicit direct retail sales. It implies that the dealers forbid them to sell directly to the public:
• at art expositions such as the annual Vancouver Home Show
• at arts and crafts fairs
• on sidewalks or parks such as Stanley Park in Vancouver
• by mail-out campaigns to prospective customers
• through their own or others' non-gallery Web sites
• by advertising in magazines and newspapers
• by advertising in arts directories
• by hosting their own art parties in their homes or by renting an appropriate public space for such an exhibition


Of course, artists such as Max – who have not signed contracts of exclusivity with any galleries – have the right to pursue any such marketing and sales strategies, and it's none of the art dealers' business to tell artists that they mustn't pursue any of those avenues of retailing directly to the public.


This is especially true because there are much sales potential outside of galleries that galleries never tap. "You might not realize how few people walk through any given gallery in one year," wrote Constance Smith in her book Art Marketing 101. "Do you know how many average people who have never been in a gallery?" Art gallery owners have no business forbidding artists to tap that market (unless the artists have signed contracts of exclusivity with one or more gallery.)


In another case, Max was negotiating a painting contract with art dealer (who since then declared bankruptcy due to poor management) . One of the stipulations that Max included in the contract was a clause that stated that the gallery – if it sells Max's paintings – must reveal to Max the name, address, and phone number of the buyers of any of Max's paintings (so that the artist can verify that the selling price does not exceed the amount agree to in the contract with the gallery owner pocketing the extra money and not revealing the padded income).


The gallery owner, who was seated when he read the contract, got up after reading that clause, backed away, crossed his arms defensively and scowled, "Don't push the galleries too far!"


Max suspected that the gallerist was afraid that Max – if given the buyers' contact information, would secretly sell his art directly to that customer – even though Max assured the galleriest that he would not do so. He even showed the clause he had included in the contract that promised that would not attempt to solicit business privately from any client who bought any of Max's paintings via the gallery. The fact that the gallery owner was skeptical and suspicious of Max's intent demonstrates the deep distrust that many art dealers have of artists. It was also another example of insulting behavior that Max has been victim of at the hands of gallery owners; the gallery owner was assuming that the artist would be guilty of cheating if given the opportunity to cheat. It also demonstrated a degree of paranoia on the part of the gallery owner, because if the gallerist discovered that Max had stolen the gallery's customers surreptitiously, the gallerist could cut off his relationship with Max and Max would consequently lose a customer in the process, so naturally any logical artist wouldn't take the risk of destroying a precious long-term relationship for short-term monetary gain.

Also, Max was proposing a standard business practice; The clause is one that is recommended by the book, "How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist" in order to protect artists from galleries secretly charging and pocketing fees in excess of the fees established in contracts for painting sales. (The book says that any art dealer not willing to sign such a contract either is trying to have an excuse to cheat the artist or is ignorant of standard business practices.)
Artists on the Whole Tend to Have a Low Standard of Living - Lower Than That of Dealers and Framers

The disrespect that some artists' representatives (i.e. some gallery owners) show towards their artists is especially galling considering the low incomes that artists have. The incomes of the approximately 130,000 arts workers in Canada is 26 percent lower than the national average income, according to Statistics Canada, and visual artists' incomes are the lowest of the arts workers.


Meanwhile, most gallery owners have middle class lifestyles. Most art gallery owners – despite the tough art economy – own their own homes and SUVs, are able to support families, take annual, international vacations to places like Hawaii and Mexico, pay full and part-time staff and own their own businesses which they can sell for a profit, and have annual revenues of about $200,000 to $500,000 per gallery.


Most of these lifestyle attributes are beyond the reach of most professional visual artists and the artists don't have the power to sell their businesses. It takes many years to become a profitable artist; gallery owners who take over an existing business, on the other hand, can make a profit in the first few years if they're hard-working and savvy, yet despite (or perhaps because of) these differences of status and power, many gallery owners treat their artists poorly.


The typical visual artist is one of the most underpaid individuals in our society," wrote arts attorney Peter Karlen in a study commissioned by the United States Congress via the U.S. Registry of Copyrights. Everyone knows of the cliché of the "starving artist" (and many believe it's not even possible to support oneself independently as a visual artist) but Max has never heard the expression "starving art dealer".


Yet despite this class difference, one of the gallery owners who is a customer of Max's complained when Max announced a $5 per print print increase, claiming that such a price increase would stifle the sales of Max's prints. (The reason was actually to try to keep the price of Max's prints low, so that Max would not make more money from the prints, and so the gallery owner could profit more from the framing of the prints). The gallery owner claimed that he was earning less than the artist, despite owning his own business in a well-to-do business district of the city, employing staff at the the gallery, owing his own home, driving an SUV, supporting a family of five and being able afford annual, international family vacations.


Obviously the gallery owner was being deceptive; one cannot enjoy such a middle class lifestyle if one earns less than minimum wage while living in Vancouver, which is one of the most expensive places to live in Canada. Also of note is that fact that Max has the lowest priced, quality giclees in Vancouver, so a gallery owner complaining about a price increase of $5 wholesale per print is just making a ruse – at the artist's expense – to try to maintain the gallery owner's profits on the framing.


One of Max's customers - Luis Sopena, the owner of Caulfeild Gallery in the British Properties in West Vancouver – who is also a part-time artist – told Max that he knows of several artists who encountered so much abuse at the hands of art resellers that they gave up on their dreams of becoming professional artists!


Max is very appreciative of the galleries that support his business. Unfortunately, the appreciation is too often not mutual – for no good reasons.


"I still cringe," wrote author and art consultant Caroll Michels, "when I hear or learn about some of the unintelligent remarks and value judgments made by dealers, or the outrageous rudeness they display....I have trouble responding when I am asked to name dealers I respect both as businesspeople and as human beings. In New York, which has more than five hundred commercial galleries, the dealers on my list could be counted on one hand!" Max finds that generalization to be overly negative (because he has met many fine people who are also fine dealers.)


"Galleries often don't seem to respect artists," wrote author Constance Smith in her book, Art Marketing 101. "They pay them late, do not repair damaged artwork before returning it, sometimes do not even return work to the artist. I cannot tell you the number of stories like this I have heard about galleries. Of course, there are some great gallery owners out there, too, but I've only heard a few stories about them."


Max has been figuratively kicked out of three art galleries by the owners (and physically thrown out of the one that he won a fraud lawsuit against). In one instance, his only transgression was offering offset lithographs for sale to the owner. The owner, who was selling original prints around 1990, a time when the original print market was suffering from the booming market for limited edition offset lithographs (and especially wildlife prints). He may have been suffering economically from the competition, and he despised reproductions and the people who sold them, so he insulted Max by telling him that his offset lithographs were "not art" and said "Get the f___ out!" and continued to shout insults at the artist as the artist made a hasty retreat. (The mean-spirited art dealer fortunately closed the gallery many years ago.)


Max was actually insulted by another elitist art dealer who also condescendingly said that Max's offset lithographs weren't art (because they were offset lithographs rather than original art). The gallery sold original art almost exclusively.(Due to a dearth of appropriate venues, Max later decided to compromise and sold his paintings and prints through that gallery, despite the insult of the owner.)


Max was given the same insult by one of his former college art instructors (Max briefly befriended his former teacher several years after attending the art school and showed his Vancouver posters to the man at that time, soon after moving to Vancouver from Toronto. Max isn't sure if the reason for the insult was that the posters were offset lithographs, or because they were painted in Max's straightforward, representational style, or because the posters were popular – or perhaps for a combination of those reasons. The critic was an avid advocate of zany, quirky modern art and held the bizarre, irrational and elitist idea that only undiscovered art was of laudable, and that once art becomes mainstream, it can't be considered to be good art anymore because it's mainstream.


Max was physically kicked out of another gallery: Davie Art Shop. The owner and his assistant pushed Max out the door as Max tried to photograph the owner, Philip Tran, to publicize the Tran's fraud. Max subsequently proved his claim of fraudulence by winning a fraud lawsuit against Tran.
Problems Can Occur with Art Publishers as Well
The problems of artists is not limited to art gallery owners.
Art resellers such as art publishers also can foil artists.

For example, Max secured a contract with Canadian Art Prints, which claims to be part of the world's largest art print publishing conglomerate.

Max was presented by the company with a 100-year contract – licensing the company to reproduce the art card images in unlimited quantities in any country in the work for about 100 years, with no escape clause for the artist!

Max objected to the highly restrictive terms of the contract and submitted proposed written alterations to the contract. The company president and founder rejected the amendments, claiming that the contract was the standard contract signed by all of the artists that the company represented.


Max was skeptical of the claim because of the balance of the rights strongly favoured the publisher, and not the artist, and because it seemed very unlikely that every one of the company's hundreds of artist who signed contracts with the company before 2001 would agree to sign contracts that were essentially 100-year contracts with no escape clauses! A 100-year contract is over 30 times longer than the average arts licensing period. "Three years is normal," states the book Art Licensing 101.


The contract states that the term of the contract would be for "the full term of the copyright in the respective Works, which is the end of the calendar year of the Artist's death, plus 50 years."! (Max, who was 41 when he signed the contract in 2000, could at the time expect to live another 50 years, and the contract expires 50 years after his death!


Max had been eager to find a publisher that would represent him when he was offered the contract and he couldn't afford to hire a lawyer, so he signed the contract despite his misgivings and the company's refusal to loosen its restrictions in the contract.


Max was unhappy with the company's sales of his art cards, because the the royalties were miniscule and every pay statement detailed art cards that the company discounted by up to 90 percent – and even gave away to its gallery customers in batches of a dozen – for which Max was paid nothing. (Even a 100 percent royalty of zero dollars is still a royalty of zero dollars!.) The discounts and giveaways continued for years, despite the company's promise that they were only introductory specials and despite Max's protests to the company's artist's rep and promises by the rep that the discounts and giveaways would stop. (Also, the contract hadn't warned Max that the company might be discounting and giving away his art works and paying him accordingly small or non-existent royalties.)


Then the company one by one quietly discontinued his art cards, and in all three cases didn't bother to inform Max that it had done so. By the time the third art card line had been discontinued, it meant that Max was no longer in effect represented by the company, yet on one from the company had bothered to contact him to inform him. Yet ironically and inaccurately, the company literature boasted about how closely the company worked with its artists. "We at Canadian Art Prints always like to stay in touch and up-to-date with all of our artists," claims the company literature.


When two consecutive pay quarters passed without his normal small cheques arriving in the mail, Max phoned Canadian Art Prints and found out from an accountant that his art cards had been discontinued.


In the meantime, he spoke with a couple of the company's top-selling artists, both of whom revealed that their contracts could be opted out of every few years, instead of having no opt-out clauses for almost a century.


Max decided not to license the company to reproduce more of his images.


To add insult to injury, the publisher – which claimed to work closely with its artists – had dumped all of its remaining art card inventory of Max's onto the art market without notifying the artist and giving him a chance to buy any the merchandise.


The company had sold its remaining inventory of almost 5,000 of Max's art cards to a local art gallery about a 97 percent discount! Because the discount was so high, Max was paid 97 percent less than his normally tiny royalty payments, so that his entire income from those 5,000 art cards was about $25!


A few years later, Max was approached by a representative of Canadian Art Prints who came across his prints on the Internet. She didn't know that Max already had a contract with the company, so she proposed that Max sign up as one of the company's artists.


Max declined the offer, citing the fact that he still officially had a contract with the company even though the company was no longer publishing or distributing his art cards. He explained about the treatment he had received.


"As for CAP [Canadian Art Prints] not informing you of the plans to discontinue your published images, it has not been CAP's policy to notify artists," wrote a company representative. "It is unfortunate that your experience has not been a pleasant one. I can certainly understand your reluctance to submit new art work to us."


The company's representative claimed that the contract Max had been given was the standard contract that all of the company's artists signed, and said that the contracts were amended in 2001 to include opt-out clauses) – the year after Max had signed his contract in 2000. However, both of the artists Max had spoken – both of whom had short contracts – had signed their contracts before 2000.


But there was a discrepancy: the two artists Max spoke with said that they signed short licensing contracts before 2000, while the company president had claimed in 2000 when Max was negotiating his contract that the 100-year licensing contracts were standard, so it appeared to Max that there was more than one type of contract given to the artists - some giving much more control and power to the company than other contracts did.



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Introduction