Pricing a marine artwork & RSMA Annual Exhibition Metrics

This is about the sales of artwork - by members and non-members - and the average prices achieved in each price band at the Royal Society of Marine Artists Annual Exhibition 2020. Plus what can be deduced from these numbers when pricing an entry in 2021.

It follows on from

• yesterday's blog post about Call for Entries: Royal Society of Marine Artists Annual Exhibition 2021 
• my post last year - Review: Royal Society of Marine Artists Annual Exhibition 2020

I've written extensively on the topic of pricing How to price your art (on this blog and Art Business Info for Artists) and I'm writing this post about pricing because:

• it's unusual for artists to review and analyse how much art sold for (as opposed to what prices were asked)
• to provide a more practical context for how they should set their own prices
  

This post considers three aspects

• the number of artworks sold in each price range - analysed between member and non-member artworks
• pricing lessons for artists selected via the open entry
• observations on sales - in different price bands - for both members and non-members.

Why artists need better advice and guidance about pricing

I've thought for some time that there ought to be clearer guidelines on pricing given to artists entering open exhibitions and art competitions.

I'd really fed up of seeing silly prices - and good artwork hanging on a wall unsold. 

To my mind this is:

• Either a failure of marketing (i.e. the right people are not attending the exhibition)
• Or pricing by member artists - despite past trends on sales and prices in annual exhibitions (assuming they get such data) i.e. are they not told or do they ignore the data?
  
• Or failure to provide good guidance to artists submitting to an open exhibition / art competition via the open entry. Many artists need useful guidelines for pricing their artwork

 

Why I write about pricing and have written this post

One way or another, obvious failures for artists to price effectively needs to be addressed - and this post is by way of me "doing my bit".  

One of the reasons why I'm going to write about pricing is I like to see artists do well - and sell their art.  You also need to bear in mind that I'm an ex-Finance Director and analyst who likes crunching numbers!

I'm also probably the ONLY independent person in the UK who 

• regularly monitors prices and sales of art
  
• across both national art societies and major art competitions 
• provides feedback on such pricing to artists aspiring to develop a professional career.
  

You can read more about pricing art on

• my Art Business Info website - see How to Price Your Art 
• my blog posts about pricing for open exhibitions (at the end of this post)
  
• and why I'm qualified to comment on pricing.  

 

One reason artwork does not sell is price

I often see excellent artworks in exhibitions at the Mall Galleries (both art competitions and art societies) - entered by those who were selected from the Open Entry - which do not sell.

I also see paintings by members which are 'adorning the wall' but not selling because they are overpriced for the venue and the audience. Presumably with a view to marketing commissions - but if they're not doing that either, then it's an expensive use of space.

The reason good to great artworks do not sell, in my view, is primarily often down to how they've been priced - and whether pricing decisions were well-informed.

One of the factors critical to sales is the marketplace the exhibition is taking place in. A marketplace can be defined by the characteristics it exhibits as to ceiling prices and what sort of work sells.  

 

RSMA Annual Exhibition Metrics 2020 - Sales and Pricing

This is a partial view only of the metrics for sales at the RSMA Annual Exhibition in 2020. The numbers available can be sliced and diced in various ways.

The Chart and Table BELOW show the number of artworks sold in different price bands.

The numbers are derived from the online exhibition and the sales recorded on the Exhibition Page on the Mall Galleries website. 

• Given there was no catalogue last year, this is the only visible record of artwork in the exhibition. 
• You can still see the 2020 artworks - with details of medium, size and prices - on the Mall Galleries website - and which ones sold!
  

RSMA 2020: Chart of member (dark blue) and nonmember (pale blue)
sales of artworks across different price bands

• Average prices for each price band are show in the table below - along with the figures for number of sales for members and non-members. 
• The percentage column indicates how the NUMBER sales within price bands contributed to total sales - in a cumulative basis. 
• The latter is NOT the same as how sales within each band contributed to the total value of sales made.

RSMA 2020: Number of sales and average price across different price bands
Plus how each price band cumulatively contributed to total sales (Numbers only)

 

The Table ABOVE indicates

RI Annual Exhibition 2023: Analysis of art sales metrics and pricing artwork for the future

This is my third post about pricing in recent art society exhibitions. Today it's about the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI) Annual Open Exhibition 2023 at the Mall Galleries in London in April 2023. 

The exhibition is the biggest exhibition of watercolours in the UK. This is my review of the exhibition Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours Annual Exhibition 2023 in which I indicated I'd be doing this exhibition metrics post after the exhibition had closed.

Sales for this exhibition take place:

• during the exhibition - to visitors
• online - before, during and after the exhibition in the Mall Galleries

Below you can find charts I've produced from a lot of careful counting of artworks hung in the exhibition and which ones sold.

Plus some fairly robust comments.....

Exhibition Metrics: Artwork Exhibited and Artworks Sold

The purpose of the post is to illustrate some points about pricing which I've been making for some time - which are again underlined by the results I got from my analysis

This post considers three aspects

• the number of artworks exhibited and sold in each price range - analysed between member and non-member artworks
• observations on sales - in different price bands - for both members and non-members.
• pricing lessons for:
• the RI and Mall Galleries
• member artists
• artists selected via the open entry - when entering in 2024.

My charts reveal

• which are the most popular price bands for sales.
• which price bands have the most unsold work!

There are a number of important points - about which I'll comment more below - which, in summary are:

• Price point hurdles are VERY important determinants of sale 
• Affordable art sells well
• There's an effective ceiling limit at the Mall Galleries - above which few artworks will sell
• Excessive prices rarely generate sales for unknown artists - you need to be aware of the audience an exhibition attracts
• Expensive artworks are harder to sell during a period of economic uncertainty

All/any pricing ALWAYS needs to take economic context into account. This is particularly relevant to some members who normally sell and sold no work in this exhibition.

I'm uploading larger versions of my pricing/sales charts to a post about them on my Facebook Page.

Overall:

• 449 artworks were selected for hanging in the exhibition
• 68 artworks sold - represented 18% of the artwork hung
• open artists sold more artwork than RI members
• 40 by RI members (17% of artwork hung)
• 43 by artists selected from the Open Entry (20% of artwork hung)
• most sales were for less than £1,500 - which has been a really important hurdle price for a very long time.

[NOTE: This post has been corrected for an error I made which I spotted this morning in the comments immediately after the first chart - and updated.] 

What proportion of artwork sold - across different price ranges?

Two price ranges saw the most sales - and there were few sales after £1,500

RI Annual Exhibition 2023
Comparison of total numbers of artworks sold and exhibited

• Under £500: 36% of artworks hung sold - and most of these relate to small/smaller artworks by open entrants
• £501-£750: 24% of artwork hung sold - again mostly in relation to smaller artworks

This is not untypical of what happens in an economic context of uncertainty such as 

• the current cost of living crisis and 
• concern around increases in interest rates - which has NOT abated (i.e. this applies to all upcoming exhibitions too)

Exactly the same thing happened when we had the banking crisis in 2008 - which is when I started monitoring prices and sales. Sales were much better at the "affordable art" end and basically sales crashed among the more expensive price ranges. Interestingly I could spot established artists on the wall who had learned the hard lessons of 2008 and adjusted what they submitted accordingly. (In 2009 we had a LOT of "play it safe during the recession" exhibitions and this is what I've been expecting to see this year)

Other observations which can be made are:

• the first four price ranges have a similar number of artworks hung
• however the number of sales in the first four price ranges DIMINISH as the price rises
• after £1500 (a VERY important price hurdle observed by me in numerous FBA exhibitions)
• the numbers of artworks hung drop off dramatically
• the drop in sales is even more dramatic
• only 6 artworks sold above £1500
• nobody sold above £5,000

I am absolutely certain there are artists who would have sold or sold more if they'd had better information about 

• how sales work relative to prices in these galleries - and 
• how best to price in relation to price hurdles
• how best to price in a time of economic uncertainty

What are the price hurdles?

Pricing a Watercolour & RI Annual Exhibition Metrics

The annual exhibition by the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours is the largest exhibition of watercolour paintings in the UK every year. 

It's also on for a decent length of time so it seemed very suitable to test my theory on pricing art prior to writing up of my proposed blog post on how artists are pricing themselves out of sales (COMING SOON)

This post covers the exhibition metrics (relevant performance data) for the 2019 Annual Exhibition:

• how open is this open exhibition - the ratio of members to non-members
• how well watercolour artwork has sold - with specific reference to price bands.

An Open Annual Exhibition

This is a proper OPEN EXHIBITION - and I recommend it to aspiring artists working in watercolours.

• 411 artworks were exhibited. Of these
• 249 are members (61% of artists)
• 162 are non-members (39%). 
• 166 artists exhibited. Of these:
• 50 were members (of the current total of 53 members)
• 4 were deceased members
• 112 were non-members selected from the open entry

The average number of paintings hung were

• Members: 4.9 paintings
• Deceased members: 1 painting each
• Non-members: 1.4 paintings
• Most non-members have just one and sometimes two paintings in the exhibition. 
• Only those who have applied to be a candidate for membership have more than two paintings in the exhibition

It's also an exhibition which had c. 7,000 visitors and hence a huge number of people looking at paintings during the course of the exhibition.  Mind you I think a lot aspire to be in the exhibition! 

Pricing a Watercolour 

One of the reasons why I'm going to write about pricing is I like to see artists do well - and sell their art.You can read more about pricing on my Art Business Info website - see

• How to Price Your Art 
• and why I'm qualified to comment on pricing.  I'm probably the only independent person in the UK who regularly monitors prices and sales across both national art societies and major art competitions

I often see excellent artworks in exhibitions at the Mall Galleries (both art competitions and art societies) entered by those who were selected from the Open Entry which do not sell.

I also see paintings by members which are 'adorning the wall' but not selling because they are overpriced for the venue and the audience.

The reason excellent artworks do not sell, in my view, is primarily down to how they've been priced.

This section considers three aspects

• the number of artworks sold in each price range - analysed between member and non-member artworks
• pricing lessons for artists selected via the open entry
• observations on member artist sales

Number of artworks sold in each price range

To start trying to explain my theories on pricing (which I've held for some time) I decided to test them by monitoring all sales being recorded on the Mall Galleries website for all those paintings which had a digital image on the website.

I did three checks

• after the preview and the first couple of days of being open to sales IN THE GALLERY (which is the period when most sales are generally made). These sales also included all those sales made online before the exhibition opened.
• a week later 
• on the final day

There were quite a lot of sales at the beginning and, interestingly, more sales in the final week than I was expecting towards the end - but sales slowed in the middle of the exhibition.

All the paintings I liked and expected to sell sold - bar a couple (however they may have sold but were not online or not updated online).

All the paintings I knew were overpriced did not sell.  

In total 76 paintings sold - 49 by members and 27 by open entrants.  
The chart below records sales results for 60 sales recorded online (33 by members and 27 by non-members).

Chart of all sales recorded online at the RI Annual Exhibition 2019

• Two thirds of sold paintings by members and ALL the sold paintings by non-members are included in the above chart
• Non-members dominate the under £500 category. (Members often overprice their small paintings!)
• Above £500 RI members typically dominated sales
• Two-thirds of the 60 sales I recorded sold for less than £1,000 - 19 by RI members and 20 by non-members
• Sales priced above £1,500 drop dramatically as a percentage of the total.
• Very few paintings sell for more than £3,000 - unless they have a strong following and/or fans with a big wallet.
• £1,500 is a significant price hurdle for watercolours - Three women and one man who all sold well all kept their prices below £1,500.

Pricing lessons for selected artists via the open entry

Key points:

• Inexperienced artists who are ignorant of market prices often overprice. 
• Most non-members' paintings sell for less than £1,000
• Very few watercolour artists sell paintings for more than £3,000 at the Mall Galleries. Those that do have a strong following and/or paint excellent large watercolours
• Watercolours in general cannot compete with the price of oil paintings and should be priced accordingly. 

Issues for pricing:

• Unfamiliarity with the exhibition affects pricing. This is an exhibition which attracts entries from all over the country. However not every artist who enters via the open entry has been to the exhibition previously. It's very probably the case that most have not analysed pricing and sales. In addition, seeing overpriced paintings in exhibitions can lead people to think this is the price for this type of painting in this type of market. However the only prices worth taking note of are those associated with paintings which sell.
• Inexperience and ignorance can be addressed. You can gauge prices and learn about markets for specific types of paintings by visiting an exhibition near the end and making a note of what does sell - and what doesn't.  Now you can even monitor as I did via the online version of the exhibition - so there's now no excuse for provincial and parochial "pricing blindness". 
• The mythical "London premium" is often used by provincial artists. They loading their prices with "a London premium" of their choosing which has generally been arrived at after inadequate market research. These artists generally don't sell. 
• Those who aspire to be members will not impress if they do not sell.
• Artists should always keep their prices more or less consistent wherever they are selling.
• The acrylic confusion: One of the issues that causes confusion in watercolour exhibitions is when painters in water colours who use acrylic paints price their watercolours more like oil paintings. However an exhibition of watercolours attracts collectors who pay watercolour prices. 

Member artist sales

Key points:

• Members would be well advised to look at how those artists who sell well price their art (see below)
• Those who sold well know their market/followers and did not over price
• All stayed below a threshold price - rather than pricing just above it
• The number of sales sales drop dramatically above £1,500 - except for those with a strong following

RI Members who sold well were:

• Lilias August (still life collections) - 3 paintings + silent auction painting
• Vasha Bhatia (realistic architectural paintings of prominent / important buildings) - 4 paintings
• Lisa Graa Jensen (fantasised landscapes) - 3 paintings
• Rosa Sepple (large / expensive fantasy maritime painting) - 1 painting
• Ian Sidaway (graphic stylised trees in landscapes) - 3 paintings
• Shirley Trevena (loosely painted unconventional floral still lifes) - 4 paintings
• Geoffrey Wynne (colourful paintings of international scenes) - 3 paintings

I only realised at the end that the Mall Galleries website only hosted virtual images of some two thirds of sales of member artworks in the exhibition. Presumably this is because some members failed to supply a digital image of their artwork to the organisers of the virtual online exhibition.

This is a pity - because like other prominent galleries - a number of sales took place in advance of the exhibition opening.

However members cannot sell their artwork to people viewing online if their artwork is not online!

It appeared to me that a significant number of members had no sales - including artists who have sold regularly in the past. However I can only be certain about that for those artists who had ALL their artworks online - and not all did.

Pricing / sales lessons for art societies and galleries

Clearly there's a lot of artists who need an education on pricing for exhibitions at the Mall Galleries - and that notion may well include art society members as well as non-members.

I think there's a case for art societies to act more like the David Shepherd Foundation's Wildlife Artist of the Year Exhibition.

• That exhibition aims to raise funds for charity (conservation of wild animals) 
• Consequently it also aims to maximise sales. 
• It therefore reserves the right to suggest an artist revises their price to make it more likely to sell. 
• As I understand it the way it works is if the artist won't budge then the artwork may not be exhibited.

I'd suggest serious consideration is given by FBA societies to the introduction of an EXTRA FILTER  (i.e. Is the price realistic?) when selecting artwork for an open exhibition - and the society should challenge artists as to whether this is a price they have achieved in the past.

Introducing a "price check" for realism may net more sales - and more commission even if the artworks are priced lower.

After all an over-priced artwork that does not sell is a net loss to:

• a gallery which loses on commission through no sale - and the opportunity cost of selling other artwork which might well sell
• an art society which wants to help artists in general to do well
• an artist who has paid for transport, framing etc 
• an artist's career. It's all very well seeing selection for a national art society exhibition as a pathway to getting a gallery - but all galleries are interested in (after they have assessed whether your art makes the grade / fills a gap) is whether or not you are already generating sales i.e. are people interested in your work when it is realistically priced!

Pricing to sell is a really good strategy for a long term career.

In terms of overall sales I think the Mall Galleries could promote the Own Art scheme better. The majority of those attending exhibitions are people who want to buy art if it is affordable.

I think if more people realised they could buy art for 10 equal payments then more people would buy art.

PRICING

How to Price Art - on my art business info website - includes the following topics:

• How important is price when buying art? - Find out how important prices is to those buying art
• Options for pricing art - How to avoid pricing art disasters + Check out different approaches to "how to price art" - including different formulas for pricing your art
• Terminology and formulas for pricing art - Learn the words used when pricing art. Review what influences different ways of pricing art e.g. identify costs that need to be recovered and learn about how place and venue influences prices
• Art experts on pricing art - Find out what art experts recommend as the best ways to price art
• How artists price their art - Find out how other artists price their art - and which are the most popular
• What's the price of affordable art? - find out why people attach importance to numbers + what are the big price hurdles and how they can vary between countries

Plus don't forget to complete the poll about pricing. Note you are not alone if you need to learn more about pricing.

The Poll on my website

ARCHIVE: RI Annual Exhibition 2007-2018

2019 

• Review: 207th Exhibition of Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours
• RI Annual Exhibition 2019 - Awards and Candidates
• Call for Entries: Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour 207th Exhibition in 2019

2018

• Review: 206th Exhibition of Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours

2017

• 205th Annual Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour
• RI Annual Exhibition 2017 - Candidates and Awards

2016

• 204th Annual Exhibition of Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours

2015

• 203rd Annual Exhibition of Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours #1 - Prizewinners and Events 25 Mar 2015 - this one is about the prizewinners and the events in the gallery
• Annual Exhibition of Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours 26 Mar 2015 - Review of statistics for the open entry to the 203rd Annual Exhibition of Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and paintings I liked.

2014

• Video: Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours - Annual Exhibition 11 Apr 2014

The purpose of this video isn't to give you an in-depth view of all the paintings so much as to give you:an idea of the overall size of the exhibition
a notion of how big the paintings are that get selected via the open entry
a view of the paintings that were selected this year

2013

• Review: Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour - Annual Exhibition 10 Apr 2013

This exhibition has always been very popular with the provincial art societies whose members arrive in droves - on coaches!

2012 

• 200th Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (March 2012) - highlights the artists whose work I liked and the artists who won the awards

2011

• Review: 199th Annual Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (April 2011) - highlights the prizewinners

2010

• Exhibition: RI Painters in Watercolour (2010)

2008

• Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours Annual Exhibition 2008

2007

• Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours Annual Exhibition 2007

Call for Entries: Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour 208th Exhibition in 2020

The Call for Entries for the 208th Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI) at the Mall Galleries in London in April 2020 opened while I was in the USA - hence the very late post on this blog of the call for entries information! For some reason I'd got it into my head I'd already posted it! But I hadn't - so this is it!

The Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours seeks the best in contemporary watercolour and watermedia painting

The deadline for entries to this exhibition - which is open to international artists - is 12 noon (in London) on Friday 3 January 2020.

The RI Call for Entries image for 2020

Below you will find:

• Summary of RI History and key metrics from last year's exhibition  (see Pricing a Watercolour & RI Annual Exhibition Metrics)
• a brief review of the history of the RI and why it is different to the RWS
• exhibition metrics for the last exhibition in 2019 - which provides a very solid reason why this is an exhibition worth exhibiting in - and at the same time provides some very clear guidance on pricing
• Call for Entries 2020 unpicked 
• about the exhibition
• terms and conditions
• who can submit an entry
• what sort of artwork can be submitted
• Prizes & Awards - The exhibition includes several prizes and awards, open to all participating artists

About the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours

The RI started as a group, called the New Society of Painters in Water Colours, who broke away from the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS) in 1807.  The latter had broken away from the Royal Academy of Arts due to its failure to consider watercolour painting as a serious medium.

The RI, under whatever name, has always shown the work of non-members alongside that of members. Unlike the RWS which has a seperate competition and exhibition for non-members (see
Call for Entries: RWS Contemporary Watercolour Competition 2020).

This means that from the very first selection of an artwork for the exhibition, it's having to be hung alongside work by members - and hence it needs to be a very good standard!

Website - http://royalinstituteofpaintersinwatercolours.org/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/RIwatercolours/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/royal_institute_watercolours/

Exhibition Metrics for the RI Annual Exhibition in 2019

I can do no better than repeat what I said in my blog post when reviewing the metrics and pricing in last year's exhibition (see Pricing a Watercolour & RI Annual Exhibition Metrics)

This is a proper OPEN EXHIBITION - and I recommend it to aspiring artists working in watercolours.......It's an exhibition which had c. 7,000 visitors and hence a huge number of people looking at paintings during the course of the exhibition. Mind you I think a lot aspire to be in this exhibition!

This is a summary of the exhibition metrics for the annual exhibition in 2019.  It's worth bearing in mind when deciding how many works to submit and why it's very important to submit your best work.

• 411 artworks were exhibited. Of these
• 249 are by members (61% of artists)
• 162 are by non-members (39%).
• 166 artists exhibited. Of these:
• 50 were members (of the current total of 53 members)
• 4 were deceased members
• 112 were non-members selected from the open entry

The average number of paintings hung were as follows

• Members: 4.9 paintings
• Deceased members: 1 painting each
• Non-members: 1.4 paintings
• Most non-members have just one and sometimes two paintings in the exhibition.
• Only those who have applied to be a candidate for membership have more than two paintings in the exhibition

BELOW is my chart of how paintings sold last year in the different price ranges. It's my conviction that more would be sold if we could lose the sometimes very silly pricing by people who have not got track record of selling at that price in London

Those submitting paintings for the 2020 exhibition would do well to keep the profile of this chart in mind when filling in their prices on the submission form.
Bottom line:

• if you're painting small and pricing above £1,000 you better be certain you have a track record
• if you're painting larger paintings you need to have a jolly good reason to price above £2,000 - and that includes members.

Frankly I only don't expect artists to get silly ideas. I expect to see people pricing at a level which they know their paintings sell at. Otherwise you're depriving wallspace from somebody who could paint an equally good painting and sell it!

You can review my past blog posts about this annual exhibition (2007-2018) at the end of this post.

some smaller works in the Main Gallery

What you can submit 

Acceptable media: Watercolour or water-soluble mediums including watercolour, acrylic, ink or gouache (excluding water-soluble oils) painted on paper or paper based support.

• Number: You can submit a maximum of six works - of which a maximum of four works selected. Typically it's candidates for membership who submit a large number of paintings. Note the metrics summarised above re the number likely to be chosen from those submitting via the open.
• Media: Artwork in watercolour or water-soluble mediums, including watercolour, acrylic, ink or gouache (excluding water-soluble oils) are eligible for exhibition.
• Support: MUST be painted or a paper or paper-based support (I still think they should also include vellum which is a very traditional support for watercolour painting)
• Size: Works must not be larger than 2.4m high and 1.5m wide. (NOTE: There is no minimum size!)
• Age: Works must have been completed within the last two years
• Exhibition: Works should NOT have been previously shown in London.
• Price: The minimum price is £350 (to include commission @ 45% + VAT).

How to Submit

The process works as follows

• READ the general terms and conditions
• READ the specific entry requirements
• REGISTER for digital submission - if you have never entered before
• SUBMIT: Login to the Open Exhibition Entry website
• Pre-selection is based on online entries and associated digital images
• You need to complete the form, pay the fee and upload images of work and submit your entry ONLINE prior to the deadline (3 January 2020 - 12 noon).
• [Note: Images must be in JPEG format and under 5MB]
• IF PRE-SELECTED: 
• Notification of Pre-selection - Friday 10 January, 12 noon (Log in to http://mallgalleries.oess.uk to see if your work has been pre-selected)
• Deliver pre-selected entries to Mall Galleries, 17 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5BD for final selection on Saturday 8th February 2020, 10am to 5pm
• take away all your packaging (the Gallery cannot pack and send back)
• FINAL SELECTION: 
• actual work viewed by a Panel of Artist Members of the RI
• Notification of Acceptance Tuesday 11 February 2020, 12 noon- via checking this page to see if your entry number is listed
• Collect work not accepted for exhibition from Mall Galleries, 17 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5BD on Thursday 13 February, 10am – 5pm
• The selectors' decisions are final and no feedback is offered.

Timeline for Open Entries - Summary of Key Dates

These are the key dates for all those wishing to submit work to this open exhibition.

• Submission opens: Monday 1 October 2019, 12 noon 
• Submission closes: Friday 3 January 2020, 12 noon
• Pre-selection notification: Friday 10 January 2020, 12 noon [Log in to see if your work has been pre-selected]
• Receiving Day (if pre-selected only): Saturday 8 February 2020, 10am - 5pm
• Acceptance notification: Tuesday 11 February 2020, 12 noon
• Collection of unaccepted work: Thursday 13 February 2020, 10am - 5pm
• Exhibition open: Thursday 2 April, 10am to 5pm (however the exhibition is closed all day on Easter Sunday, 12 April)
• Exhibition closes: Friday 17 April, 1pm
• Collection of unsold work: Thursday 23 April, 10am to 5pm

International Entrants

Artists from outside the UK may need to register for VAT, please check with HM Revenue and Customs: https://www.gov.uk

• (Also see VAT for Artists)

Artists sending work from abroad should use a picture carrier. Many artists use Picture Post as they offer a packing and delivery service for our exhibitions (we do not accept any liability for their services). Picture Post - Tel: 0044 (0)1302 711011 / Mobile: 07833 450788 / Email: info@picturepostcompany.co.uk

• (Also see Shipping Art for Artists - including How to ship art to exhibitions and UK Art Shippers, Movers & Couriers​

Candidates Wall in the Threadneedle Space

Prizes & Awards (subject to final confirmation)

This is an organisation that has worked hard to generate sponsorship for the very many prizes. So if you want your CV to include an award from an exhibition take a look at the ones below.

There are many prizes and awards available to win, including the following - split between cash prizes, awards of art materials and other prizes.

Cash Prizes

• The Winsor & Newton Award: £3,000
• The Winsor & Newton Product Prize: £1,000 worth of Winsor & Newton art materials
• The Leathersellers' Prize: £1,000 awarded by The Worshipful Company of Leathersellers to an artist aged between 18 and 30 years old
• NEW The President’s Choice Award: An award of £750 for the most deserving work in the exhibition, donated by a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI) and judged by the President of the RI, Rosa Sepple
• The Matt Bruce RI Memorial Award: An award of £500 for what is considered the most outstanding use of light and colour in a watercolour
• The Baohong Artists' Watercolour Paper Prizes: Two prizes of £250 each, awarded to a member and non-member for excellence
• The Chaoshan Watercolour Award: £250 awarded by Chinese artist, Professor Li Xiaocheng, for the best classically inspired watercolour
• The Neil Meacher RI Watercolour Award: An award of £250 for an outstanding watercolour
• The Richard Plincke RI Prize for Colour: An award of £250 for creative use of colour

Art Supplies Prizes

• The Cass Art Prize: A prize of £200 of art supplies from Cass Art, awarded to a work demonstrating the most innovative use of colour
• The Escoda Barcelona Award: A set of Escoda's finest brushes for an outstanding landscape painting
• The Frank Herring Easel Award: An easel presented for an outstanding work in the exhibition by Frank Herring & Sons
• The James Fletcher-Watson RI Memorial Award: £500 for the best use of watercolour in the exhibition
• The John Purcell Paper Prize: Paper to the value of £100 awarded to a work chosen by John Purcell
• The Schmincke Prize: A Horadam Aquarell Artists’ Watercolours set to an outstanding exhibitor.

Other Prizes

• The Anthony J Lester Art Critic Award: A certificate of commendation for an outstanding work chosen by the art critic and broadcaster Anthony J Lester
• The Debra Manifold RI Memorial Award: Presented by the Linda Blackstone Gallery, an award for the most innovative work in the exhibition
• The Dry Red Press Award: The winning work will be published as a greeting card in the Dry Red Press 'Prize Winners' range, with royalties from the sale of the cards going to the artist
• The Megan Fitzoliver Brush Award: A trophy, named The Pipe Fish, awarded for a work that most inspires a connection with the natural world.

ARCHIVE: RI Annual Exhibition 2007-2018

2019 

• Pricing a Watercolour & RI Annual Exhibition Metrics
• Review: 207th Exhibition of Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours
• RI Annual Exhibition 2019 - Awards and Candidates
• Call for Entries: Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour 207th Exhibition in 2019

2018

• Review: 206th Exhibition of Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours

2017

• 205th Annual Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour
• RI Annual Exhibition 2017 - Candidates and Awards

2016

• 204th Annual Exhibition of Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours

2015

• 203rd Annual Exhibition of Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours #1 - Prizewinners and Events 25 Mar 2015 - this one is about the prizewinners and the events in the gallery
• Annual Exhibition of Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours 26 Mar 2015 - Review of statistics for the open entry to the 203rd Annual Exhibition of Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and paintings I liked.

2014

• Video: Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours - Annual Exhibition 11 Apr 2014

The purpose of this video isn't to give you an in-depth view of all the paintings so much as to give you:an idea of the overall size of the exhibitiona notion of how big the paintings are that get selected via the open entrya view of the paintings that were selected this year

2013

• Review: Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour - Annual Exhibition 10 Apr 2013

This exhibition has always been very popular with the provincial art societies whose members arrive in droves - on coaches!

2012 

• 200th Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (March 2012) - highlights the artists whose work I liked and the artists who won the awards

2011

• Review: 199th Annual Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (April 2011) - highlights the prizewinners

2010

• Exhibition: RI Painters in Watercolour (2010)

2008

• Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours Annual Exhibition 2008

2007

• Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours Annual Exhibition 2007

RBA Annual Exhibition 2023: Analysis of art sales metrics & Recommendations about pricing artwork

This week I'm focusing on pricing art - and looking at sales in three recent exhibitions I've visited.

This post is about the sales of artwork - by members and non-members - achieved in each price band at the Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition 2023.

This post considers three aspects

• the number of artworks sold in each price range - analysed between member and non-member artworks
• observations on sales - in different price bands - for both members and non-members.
• pricing lessons for:
• the RBA and Mall Galleries
• member artists
• artists selected via the open entry - when entering in 2024.

My charts reveal 

• which are the most popular price bands for sales. 
• which price bands have the most unsold work!

Plus I comment on a well-established rumour about the Mall Galleries raising the future minimum price of an artwork - from £300 to £500 - and why this would lose money for the artists, society and the Mall Galleries. i.e in my opinion, a major rethink is required if the rumour is true!

(NOTE: 

1. A number of you know I'm a qualified accountant and an ex-Finance Director who loves crunching the numbers to reveal what might not be obvious to those artists who are less happy with numbers! I've done quite a few exhibition metrics posts in the past.
2. All charts and tables EXCLUDE any unframed sales of prints)

Sales at the Royal Society of British Artists' Annual Exhibition 2023

Number of artworks sold in each price range

Below is a chart which compares the number of artworks sold (97) to the total number of artworks exhibited (nearly 500) - by price range. 

In other words approximately 20% of the artwork on the wall was sold either at the Mall Galleries or online.

This chart does not examine whether artworks were by RBA members or open entrants. It purely focuses on:

• the distribution of total artworks hung by price band (pale column)
• the distribution of total artworks sold by price band (blue column)

The percentage of artwork sold in each price band has a very pronounced distribution.

From this, some obvious conclusions can be drawn:

• the most popular price bands are all below £1,000 - with under £500 being the most popular (for what I commonly refer to as "impulse buys")
• for the three price bands below £1,000 identified above the percentage of sales achieved for artworks hung is between 23-30% - which looks like a good result to me
• by way of contrast over 90% of artworks in the top two price bands (above £2,000) failed to sell. (i.e. 7 sales out of 93 hung = 7.5%)
• That's very expensive wall space for a very low return on the 90%
• I have been saying - for a very long time - that the only people pricing above £2,000 in the Mall Galleries should be artists with an established track record in reputable art galleries for sales above this figure. 
• The artwork might be great - but if financial targets have to be met then pricing needs to be sensible and sensitive.

Pricing "Winners"

Today I'm commenting on the prices of artworks sold during the first 2-3 days of the "Winners | Award Winning Artists 2020-2022" Exhibition at the Mall Galleries. (Note: I'm going to be writing a long post about pricing in the context of the current economic climate in the near future.)

This follows my two previous posts

• REVIEW: "Winners" Exhibition at the Mall Galleries (Part 1)
• REVIEW (Part 2): "Winners" Exhibition at the Mall Galleries

This post includes 

• a chart of all sales (to date) analysed by the size of the artwork and the price category of the sold artwork.
• commentary on my conclusions about the chances of artwork selling - by size and price categories

Winners Exhibition - View of West Gallery last Friday

As most of you know, most sales in an exhibition occur during pretty early in an exhibition. Notably 

• when it goes online and 
• at the Private View before it opens to the public, 
• then in the first few days after that. 

I'm not going to Private Views routinely at the moment - and indeed I'm still walking round with a mask on given the fact Covid infection rates are rampant in London - and I've still not had it....

However I did visit last Friday - after the PV on Tuesday evening (and the rail strike on Wednesday) and the last thing I did before I left the gallery was to walk round and photograph every artwork which had sold.

I've also checked what sales have since occurred online and it's pretty much the same.

So today is an analysis along the lines of those done in previous reviews of exhibitions in these galleries. I've crunched the numbers and created an excel file with a data sheet and a chart. All sold artworks are categorised according to

• price categories are those which I observe most sales in this location
• sizes are new - and includes small, small medium, large medium and large - scaled according to the size of the artwork and NOT the framed size.

General observations on pricing

First of all though I'm going to make some general observations

Pricing your art for Open Exhibitions - a review of a sample of exhibition metrics for 2024

This is all about how to sell the art that gets selected for an open exhibition by a national art society.

One of the ways in which artists can promote their art is by being selected for an open exhibition by a national art society. 

However, they help their profiles enormously and enhance their case for membership of a national art society if they can also demonstrate that their artwork is not only good enough to exhibit - but it also sells!

I personally find it very frustrating every time I visit an exhibition is to see good art which is overpriced - and which I know will not sell.

None of what I say applies to any artist who is not dependent on their artwork selling to have a normal life. If you have independent means, you can price however you like.

By way of contrast, what I say is crucial to the understanding of those artists who "need to know" how to achieve sales i.e. study the marketplace, what's on offer and what the price competition looks like.

UPDATE 31 December 2024: This post has now been UPDATED with reference to artists who sold more than one artwork - providing summary details of the type of art and prices of sold artwork.

Why artists get prices for their art wrong

Artists are very invested in their art. They often price in an unsound way which reflects motivations which have nothing whatsoever to do with selling art. 

The reasons for getting the price wrong are:

• thinking too much about the hours and effort put into a painting and not enough about whether that's marketable
• not visiting an annual open exhibition in advance of submitting an entry
• not observing the prices of the work which has sold - when your research can be done online
• not looking at last year's exhibition online - and noting the price bands where there are few sales
• not reading this blog! I've been banging on and on about the need to tailor prices to the marketplace for specific art galleries. 
• specifically in relation to the FBA Societies at the Mall Galleries
• specifically in relation to pricing just below and not just above important threshold prices i.e. the level at which people start thinking "No" rather than "Yes" 

Bottom line, your art is only worth an "inflated price" if you can find somewhere where it will sell at that price. Otherwise it's just numbers on a label and a painting which will be returned to you unsold.

I can by the way spot all the artists who have been reading this blog and have adjusted their prices and are now selling again after a fairly rough marketplace in recent times. :) 

While writing this post, I also noticed an awful lot of artists who used to sell well on a regular basis who are no longer doing so. Time maybe to review their strategy for getting their artwork sold?

2024 Annual Exhibition Sales Metrics by FBA Societies

Below you will find charts of sales at the 2024 annual exhibitions of the art societies who belong to the Federation of British Artists based at the Mall Galleries i.e.

• Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours
• Royal Institute of Oil Painters
• Royal Society of British Artists
• New English Art Club
• Royal Society of Portrait Painters
• Pastel Society
• Royal Society of Marine Artists
• Society of Wildlife Artists

Each chart is the exact same size - which helps make each comparable with the others. However the numbers of sales by members/associate members and those selected via the open entry are

• identified by price range in which they sold 
• with a coloured column each for member artists and open entry artists
• with an additional total column for all sales in each price range

UPDATE 31.12.24.: I'm also adding in - under each chart - the names of artists who sold well (as in 2 or more sales) in the 2024 exhibitions. It is possible to identify the TYPE of art which can sells well. Of which more in the future....

Who are the buyers at the Mall Galleries?

I started characterising buyers at the Mall Galleries as being essentially "middle class, middle aged and middle income" some years ago. 

• They typically like buying artwork priced at less than £1,500 - and they like it even more if it is priced at less than a £1,000. 
• You should bear this in mind as you review the charts and commentary below and as you check the profiles of the price ranges of artwork sold in the charts below

Essentially annual exhibitions at the Mall Galleries are about affordable art for most of those who visit, view and buy art.

Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours

They exhibited 450 artworks and sold 87 paintings (19%).

• members sold 47
• open entrants sold 40
• The top priced painting was £3,250

No open artist sold a painting for more than £1,000. 

There were a LOT of sales priced under £1000 with specific hot prices such as £650 and £450. Interestingly

• open artists dominated the below £500 category
• members dominated the £501-£1000 category

Unsurprisingly, watercolours are considered to be more affordable artwork - so long as artists produce suitable sizes and prices for them to be considered affordable. When they do, they sell like hot cakes!

Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours
Annual Exhibition Sales Metrics - number sold by price range and type of artist

Artists who did well include:

• Member: Matthew Phinn RI RSMA - 2 x landscape paintings @ £1,700 and £550
• Member: Paul Talbot-Greaves RI - all landscape paintings 2 x £400 and 3 x £750
• Member: Hannah Woodman RI - two watercolour and gouache landscape paintings @£3,250 and £1,950
• Member: Geoffrey Wynne RI - all landscape paintings priced under £2000, sold 4 including 3 at £850
• Open Entry: Miranda Brookes - sold two landscapes at £650 each
• Open Entry: Sandra Doyle - sold two botanical art paintings (£750 and £425), which she could have sold again and again!
• Open Entry: Julia Groves - 2 x flower paintings @ £870 each
• Open Entry: Kate Osbourne - sold 2 x watercolour and gouache paintings about allotments @ £395 each
• Open Entry: Jian Yuan Ong - sold 2 @£400

Note the theme re subject matter?

SEE ALSO: RI Annual Exhibition 2023: Analysis of art sales metrics and pricing artwork for the future

Royal Institute of Oil Painters

Call for Entries: Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour 209th Exhibition in 2021

The Call for Entries for the 209th Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI) at the Mall Galleries in London in April 2021 has been published this week. The deadline for entries to this exhibition - which is open to international artists - is 12 noon (in London) on Friday 5 February 2021.

View of the RI's 208th Annual Exhibition September 2020 

The Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours seeks the best in contemporary watercolour and watermedia painting

Features of the exhibition are:

• It is open to both International and British artists over 18 years of age. 
• This Exhibition offers 
• several prizes and awards (see below)
• the chance to have your work seen alongside artwork by RI members
• the opportunity to exhibit at a prestigious gallery in the heart of London 
• have your work seen by very many visitors - some of whom regularly but art

Below you will find:

• Call for Entries 2021 unpicked
• about the exhibition
• terms and conditions
• who can submit an entry
• what sort of artwork can be submitted
• Prizes & Awards - The exhibition includes several prizes and awards, open to all participating artists
• Summary of RI History and key metrics from the 2019 exhibition (see Pricing a Watercolour & RI Annual Exhibition Metrics)
• a brief review of the history of the RI 
• exhibition metrics for the last exhibition in 2019 - which provides a very solid reason why this is an exhibition worth exhibiting in - and at the same time provides some very clear guidance on pricing.

Summary of Key Dates for Artists submitting an Open Entry

These are the key dates for all those wishing to submit work to this open exhibition. More details below.

• Submission closes: Friday 5 February 2021
• Selection notification: Friday 19 February 2021, 12 noon [Log in to see if your work has been pre-selected]
• Receiving Day: Saturday 13 and Sunday 14th March 2021, 10am - 5pm
• Exhibition: Thursday 1 - 15th April, 11am to 5pm 

Call for Entries

You can find details of the Call for Entries for the exhibition in 2021 in two places:

• RI Website 
• Mall Galleries website

New for 2021 - Digital Selection ONLY

To make the process of submitting and selecting work simpler and safer, the Society will select works for exhibition from online only this year.

How this works:

• Selectors will make an assessment of each work based on the digital images supplied, 
• Selected artists must deliver their accepted work to Mall Galleries for exhibition.

What you can submit 

NEAC 2023 Annual Exhibition METRICS

It's been a long time since I reviewed the metrics of the Annual Exhibition 2023 of the New English Art Club. 

Below is a summary - essentially for those artists submitting via the Open Entry, however I think NEAC members and others will learn something new as well

New English Art Club Annual Exhibition in East Gallery, Mall Galleries

What are Metrics?

The metrics I use are numerical indicators of:

• what the exhibition comprised
• how many member / open entry artworks - and the average per artist
• how many works sold
• what price works sold for
• how performance varied between NEAC members and open artists

Below is my summary of of the metrics - the performance indicators - for the exhibition.

• number of artists exhibiting - members and open
• number of artworks exhibited - split between members and open
• number of sales of artworks - categorised by price band and split between members and open artists.

Number of artworks exhibited and exhibiting artists

399 artworks were exhibited in the 2023 annual open exhibition - across all three galleries of the Mall Galleries of which all but 14 were for sale.

Artworks included:

• paintings - in oils, acrylics, gouache, watercolour, egg tempera and distemper
• drawings - in charcoal, pastels, conte, colour pencils, graphite, ballpoint pen and mixed media
• fine art prints (very few) - etching, aquatint, wood engraving, nkjet print, 

[The exhibition of watercolour paintings by the former Prince of Wales - in the guise of AG Carrick - appears to have ceased.]

Of the 399 artworks hung in 2023

• 257 (64%) artworks for sale were by 75 (43%) members (of whom one had died in the previous year); 14 artworks by members were "not for sale" 
• 118 (29%) artworks were by 97 (55%) non-members 
• 12 (3%%) artworks were by 3 (2%) NEAC Scholars (who have been counted as non-members for the purposes of other calculations
• 14 (3.5%) artworks (by 3 deceased member artists and two living members) were not for sale and were excluded from the calculations below.

Note: 

1. Prints have been excluded from the calculations if sold as "unframed" / direct from the artist. No figures are provided for prints sold.
2. all figures subject to rounding.
3. Back in 2015 some 1,000 entries resulted in 94 paintings, drawings, prints and watercolours (i.e. 9.4%) were hung alongside the 293 works by members - so the exhibition is now showing more works from the Open Entry.

NEAC Member Artists

Of the NEAC members:

• the vast majority of living / practising artist members exhibited artwork in the exhibition
• The majority of member artists exhibiting displayed 4 artworks with a few (typically older members) only displaying one or two.
• 4 deceased members (Fred Cuming, Antony Green, Ken Howard, Dawn Sidoli) also had exhibits

In relation to sales: a very large proportion of member artists had no sales at all. The pricing section will explain some of the reasons why.

Of artists with sales, those who sold more than one artwork included:

• sold 3 artworks: Diana Calvert, Melissa Scott-Miller. 
• sold 2 artworks: June Berry, Francis Bowyer, Judith Gardner, Mary Jackson, Charles Rake, Richard Pikesley, Glyn Saunders, Sarah Spencer

Between you and me, I think the ladies have the right idea!

Artists from the Open Entry

The selectors this year were treated to another record number of submissions allowing us to indulge in picking only the very best from so many good entries. Catalogue

I'm very much not a fan of the term "record number of entries" in the introduction to the exhibition in the catalogue - without a NUMBER! Tell us how many!

Of the 97 artists from the OPEN Entry:

• 7 were members of other national societies (most of which are based at the Mall Galleries).
• Leaving 90 artists with no affiliation to a national art society
• The majority of the non-member artists only had ONE WORK selected from the open entry for the exhibition, with a few having two works.

Average artworks per artist

Member artists typically had four artworks hung. Overall the average was 3.4 artworks for sale per exhibiting member artist as some only submitted one artwork.

Similarly, the NEAC Scholars each had four artworks hung. It's certainly an opportunity to make a big positive impression which not all capitalised on.

Those artists selected via the open entry typically had just one artwork hung - with an average of 1.2 artworks per artist. 

My advice to those submitting via the open entry is to submit just one - and make it a stunner!

Artworks sold and price of artworks sold

Now for the charts! I have to confess I've been through these numbers 4 or 5 times and keep coming up with a discrepancy of 2. I've given up trying to find it since the overall numbers stay very much the same.

I'll start with the Overall Picture and then comment on the charts for NEAC and the Open Entry (which includes the NEAC Scholars artwork).

Below the yellow is sales and the burnt orange is artworks exhibited. 

NEAC 2023: Comparison of number of sales to artwork exhibited by price range

HEADLINE: irrespective of how artworks were priced and/or how good they were - most sales were priced at less than or equal to £1,500. 

I have been making this point for a very long time.  If you want to improve the chance of an artwork selling it needs to be priced at a level that the market is prepared to buy.