Art Galleries Editing and Proofreading Services

Eleven works go into a gallery for a three-month show. Four sell, two go to an art fair afterwards, one is damaged in transit, and three are still in the storeroom two years later. Every one of those outcomes was governed by a document the artist signed without reading, and in most galleries that document does not say what happens to any of them.

We edit what commercial galleries produce — consignment agreements and artist terms, price lists and invoices, exhibition proposals and press releases, collector correspondence and offer letters, art fair applications and booth documentation, condition and shipping paperwork, catalogue and website texts, and the letters that end or renegotiate a relationship. Our editors work on the documents that hold a gallery and an artist together.

The consignment agreement is where the gallery–artist relationship is defined or left to goodwill, and its failure is a document that covers commission and nothing else. Goodwill is sufficient until the year it is not. We work through these so the commission is stated with what it is calculated on — the sale price before or after discount, and who bears a discount given to a collector — since this single ambiguity accounts for most disputes; so payment timing is fixed to a stated number of days from the gallery receiving cleared funds, with what happens when a collector pays in instalments; so responsibility for the work while it is held is stated with the insurance, its basis of value and what the artist is covered for in transit, given that most artists assume they are insured and most agreements are silent; so the duration of the consignment and the return process are written with who pays for the return; so the gallery's authority to discount, to place work with another dealer or to take work to a fair is stated with whether the artist must be told or must agree; so exclusivity is defined by territory, medium and duration rather than as a word; so what happens on termination — to unsold work, to outstanding payments, to a client list — is set out; and so the artist's rights to images, resale information and their own archive are addressed. Agreements written this way keep artists for twenty years.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including agreements, price lists, collector information and artist correspondence. We are editors rather than dealers, valuers or lawyers, and we offer no legal advice and no view on commission, terms or any relationship. What we can do is make the agreement cover what actually happens.