{"id":19328,"date":"2025-12-18T21:03:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T21:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/12\/18\/art-collector-guide-do-galleries-ever-offer-discounts\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T21:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T21:03:08","slug":"art-collector-guide-do-galleries-ever-offer-discounts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/12\/18\/art-collector-guide-do-galleries-ever-offer-discounts\/","title":{"rendered":"Art Collector Guide: Do Galleries Ever Offer Discounts?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dealers must walk a fine line between sustaining an artist\u2019s market and closing the sale. \u00a9 Vasco Stocker Vilhena (for Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Everywhere we look, we\u2019re bombarded by price-cutting: you-pay-what-we-pay employee discounts, summer clearance savings, Presidents Week or Memorial Day or Labor Day or Black Friday sales, tax holidays, trade-in allowances and rebates for recent college graduates and military families. Everywhere, that is, except in art galleries. The prices for artworks that don\u2019t sell aren\u2019t lowered. Instead, those unsold pieces are quietly returned to the artist.<\/p>\n

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\u201cDealers work carefully to maintain consistency,\u201d Penny Pilkington<\/a>, co-owner of New York\u2019s P\u00b7P\u00b7O\u00b7W art gallery, told Observer, asserting that \u201cthe integrity of the artist\u2019s broader market\u201d is at stake. \u201cSudden reductions or reactive price shifts can have unintended consequences: they may undermine collector confidence, create discrepancies across different bodies of work, or inadvertently signal a weakening demand where none actually exists.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, what works in the sale of appliances, clothing, automobiles and cellphones plainly doesn\u2019t apply to works of art. But that\u2019s not to say that prices for artworks are never lowered. It\u2019s rare that anyone shopping at a higher-end gallery pays the list price for a work on display\u2014or even one in the back room. Once a dealer sees that a prospective buyer is serious, a price is floated, followed by the familiar question: \u201cCan you help me out with that?\u201d or \u201cWhat can you do for me?\u201d That\u2019s when the real negotiation begins. \u201cEspecially during tough times, I think dealers are more inclined to be more generous with discounts,\u201d Manhattan gallery owner Nancy Hoffman<\/a> told Observer, noting that 10 percent discounts for collectors and 15 percent for museums are standard\u2014and can go higher. \u201cThe concept of building value into an artist\u2019s price structure collapses if one arbitrarily changes that structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

A term economists use to describe a work of art is Veblen good<\/i>, named for American economist Thorstein Veblen<\/a>, referring to an item for which demand increases as the price rises and decreases when the price drops. Unlike buyers of Motorola phones or Whirlpool refrigerators, who may wait for a sale, art buyers tend to lose interest when the price goes down. \u201cThe economics of art is upside-down,\u201d explained Robert Litan<\/a>, an economist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, adding that \u201cthe select customer base that art appeals to\u201d isn\u2019t interested in paying less because paying more signals wealth and status. \u201cThe higher the price, the potentially more valuable it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, there are buyers who only<\/em> want to pay top dollar. In 2013, Steven Cohen<\/a>, owner of SAC Capital Advisors LP, purchased Pablo Picasso\u2019s 1932 painting La R\u00eave<\/i> from casino owner Steve Wynn for $155 million<\/a>\u2014the highest price paid by a U.S. collector at the time. Back in 2006, Cohen had planned to buy the painting for $139 million, but Wynn accidentally tore the canvas with his elbow while showing off the work. The painting was restored, and although Cohen could have negotiated for a lower price, not everyone is looking for a bargain.<\/p>\n

Economists refer to the relationship between price and demand as \u201celasticity of demand\u201d\u2014the idea that demand shrinks or expands with changes in price. But \u201cdemand for art is probably not elastic,\u201d said John Silvia<\/a>, former chief economist for Wachovia and now head of Dynamic Economic Strategy. He said price cuts work for mass consumer goods: \u201cIt brings people into the store. But if you have a product that is fairly unique or distinct, like art or jewelry, the answer is no, you don\u2019t lower the price.\u201d In a prestige market like art, cutting prices\u2014say, dropping a painting from $40,000 to $30,000\u2014can backfire. Gallery owners who do slash prices risk alienating two buyers: \u201cYou alienate anyone who bought from you in the past and now thinks he was cheated, and you create a doubt in the minds of future buyers about any work of art you sell. They wonder, \u2018Am I being cheated now?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This upside-down logic generally applies to the primary market\u2014artworks by living artists still producing new work. On the secondary market, and especially for deceased artists, prices can fluctuate\u2014and discounts can run much higher. \u201cMost of what I have is on consignment,\u201d Debra Force<\/a>, a Manhattan dealer specializing in American paintings, drawings and sculpture from the 18th to 20th Centuries, told Observer. \u201cAfter six months that the work hasn\u2019t sold, I tend to go back to the work\u2019s owner and say, \u2018Let\u2019s try it at a different price\u2019\u201d\u2014meaning lower. \u201cIf after another six months it still doesn\u2019t sell, I might go back to the owner again and suggest another price.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of this is unusual. She noted that galleries typically maintain both an asking price and a projected sale price. Where things get more complicated is how that price drop is split. \u201cI may shave my own commission on the sale and take less,\u201d Force said. \u201cOr the price drop may be shared by both the consignor and the gallery\u2014or just the consignor.\u201d Negotiations happen not only between dealer and buyer, but between dealer and consignor: Will the artwork\u2019s owner accept less, and how much less? Both parties may want a higher price, but, Force added, \u201cit\u2019s better to keep selling than to sit and wait. I have to make an income.\u201d<\/p>\n

Summertime brings clearance sales to car dealerships\u2014and also to Questroyal Fine Art on Park Avenue and 79th Street. From June through August, the gallery offers 75 to 100 paintings (all secondary market) at 15 to 50 percent off. \u201cSummer is a slow period generally,\u201d Brent Salerno<\/a>, co-owner of Questroyal with his father, told Observer. \u201cOur specials help us move inventory, raise capital and help us get ready for the fall.\u201d That sale concludes August 31, but if someone wants to buy a work they saw during the summer after that date, \u201cwe will honor that lower price.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discounts are different from price reductions; one is negotiated privately (even if frequently), while the other is publicly declared. The amounts may vary significantly. Still, both strategies blur the line between listed price and actual value\u2014and can leave buyers who pay full price feeling like chumps. Everyone knows there\u2019s a price behind the price, creating a kind of gamesmanship that pulls both buyer and seller away from the artwork itself. \u201cIt\u2019s a psychological thing for collectors to get a discount,\u201d one dealer said. \u201cIf they don\u2019t get one, they feel they haven\u2019t been treated well.\u201d<\/p>\n

We live in the age of Amazon and Walmart, where everyone expects a deal. Bargain-hunters exist in the art world too\u2014and the phenomenon is hardly new. Algur Meadows<\/a>, the Texas oilman and art collector who infamously bought a slew of Old Master fakes, boasted of his ability to acquire art at half price or less. In the 1960s, he told a reporter, \u201cThey\u2019d come down here with a Modigliani for $100,000, which I knew was the selling price anywhere. The next day, they asked $75,000, and I told them to take it away\u2026 Two or three weeks would go by. They kept telling me they had to leave town. Well, I said, I haven\u2019t asked you to stay. If you want to sell it to me, I\u2019ll give you $45,000. They took it.\u201d<\/p>\n

More for art collectors<\/b><\/h3>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Why<\/p><\/div>\n