A representation deal makes a gallery an artist's primary dealer: the gallery promises to show, promote and sell the work, and the artist promises to bring new work there first. In New York the customary core, from Chelsea flagships to two-room operations in Chinatown, is exclusivity, a term of one to three years, and a fifty-fifty split on primary sales.
Art Real NY publishes information, not legal or financial advice. It is worth saying plainly that representation is often an unwritten arrangement, a handshake at a studio visit, a show on the calendar, a consignment invoice that implies the rest. The patterns below describe how the trade commonly works rather than what any single contract requires, and no two dealers structure everything identically.
What does exclusivity actually cover in a representation deal?
Exclusivity almost always covers the primary market, meaning the first sale of new work, and it binds in both directions: the artist does not place new work with rival dealers, and the gallery does not quietly drop the artist the moment a faster seller appears. Most arrangements carve out exceptions, commonly studio sales of smaller pieces, and leave resale alone.
The logic is attention. A gallery that spends years building an artist's market through exhibitions, fair booths and patient collector phone calls wants to be the one who reaps what it sowed. The artist gives up optionality and gains a machine. Where exclusivity is informal rather than written, misunderstandings multiply. A sale placed elsewhere, a discount granted twice, and goodwill drains fast.
How long does a representation deal usually last?
One to three years is the customary term, very often with automatic renewal unless either side gives notice, typically sixty to ninety days before the anniversary. Young galleries frequently start softer than that, with a single consigned show and an understanding, while some decades-long relationships run on nothing anyone could produce on paper.
Term length is really about the calendar. Galleries program a year or more ahead and commit booth space to fairs before the season starts, so an artist who joins mid-cycle can wait longer for a solo than either party expected. Renewal conversations therefore tend to be practical rather than sentimental: whether the last show sold, whether the fair placement earned its keep, whether the new body of work justifies another cycle. None of that is cruel. It is simply how a business with high fixed costs stays upright.
What territory does a representation agreement cover?
Territory answers one question: where may this gallery sell, and where must it step aside? The modern default, especially among galleries working the international fair circuit, is worldwide primary representation, meaning one dealer everywhere for new work. Older and smaller agreements sometimes limit territory to the United States or to New York, leaving the artist free to add dealers abroad.
Territory and fairs collide constantly. A Seoul gallery interested in an artist may insist on Asia; the New York dealer may insist that a European fair means Europe. The cleanest contracts spell out which gallery gets which fair, because those decisions carry real money and cannot be improvised in a hallway. Secondary sales sit outside territory entirely. A collector reselling a painting years later is not a representation question, though dealers who cultivated the market often expect a role in resales all the same.
How is the commission structured inside the deal?
Fifty-fifty on primary sales remains the industry standard in New York. The familiar variations run in both directions: sixty-forty in the artist's favor for names whose demand outruns supply, and sixty-forty in the gallery's favor for artists still building a sales record. Collector discounts are customarily absorbed proportionally, so a ten percent courtesy cut lands on both halves equally.
Costs are where the simple arithmetic turns negotiable. Framing, crating, shipping and expensive production, a bronze pour is not cheap, are either deducted before the split or charged against the artist's half, and the difference between those two wordings is real money over a decade. Payment timing is its own discipline, usually around thirty days from the moment the collector's money clears.
What does the gallery owe the artist in return?
The standard obligations are concrete: a solo exhibition on some cadence, commonly every eighteen months to three years at smaller galleries and longer at crowded rosters; fair placements; storage and insurance for consigned work; promotion; and honest inventory records. What a gallery owes, versus what it merely promises at dinner, is exactly what a written agreement exists to sort out.
- A solo show on a stated rhythm, ideally with the first date on the calendar before anything is signed.
- Fair exposure, since for many galleries the booth has become the true showroom.
- Storage, handling and insurance while work sits on consignment.
- Pricing discipline, so the market is not quietly eroded by random discounts.
Artists weighing an offer should read the calendar, not the flattery. A dealer's commitments are visible in what actually gets built, exhibitions that happened, booths that shipped, payments that arrived on time. An agreement that only binds the artist is not representation. It is a leash.
What happens when a representation deal ends?
A healthy ending is mostly logistics. Consigned work comes back, usually within weeks; outstanding invoices are settled according to the payment terms; the artist signs elsewhere or goes it alone. Most agreements allow either side to walk at renewal, and mid-term exits are more often negotiated than litigated, because the art world runs on reputation and everyone knows it.
What lingers is the market the relationship built. Price history follows the artist, which is a gift when the run was good and a weight when it was not. Some endings are not even endings: a dealer quietly keeps selling from storage without showing the work, which suits nobody. The best contracts describe the divorce while everyone still likes each other.
Does a handshake count as a representation deal?
In New York it can. Work delivered for sale sits on consignment by default under state law, and where nothing is written, trade custom fills the gaps: roughly a fifty-fifty split, payment after the gallery is paid, exclusivity honored in the breach or not at all. Handshake deals work right up until the day they suddenly do not.
Emails, invoices, even a consistent exhibition history can document terms later, and a short written agreement costs almost nothing to prepare. One page covering exclusivity, term, territory, commission, payment timing and wind-down would prevent a remarkable share of the misunderstandings that end careers quietly. Artists rarely ask for it early, because asking feels like distrust. It is not distrust. It is respect for the math.
For more context, read How Galleries and Artists Split Sales.
For more context, read gallery roster.
For more context, read Why New York Needs Artist-Run Galleries.