Selling Photographs As Art

When photography as art was new, it was sold thru galleries to wealthy individuals and occasionally to businesses. It was not collected by museums. In 1937 Edward Weston became the first photographer to receive an art grant. It was a $2000 grant from the Guggenheim Foundation. This is worth about $32,000 in today's dollars.

http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm

Receiving a prestigious grant, as well as any other form of public recognition, has always allowed artists , scientists, and other intellectuals to negotiate a higher price with the distributors of their intellectual information.

Galleries remain the principal distributors of photography as art, although they also sell work to museums and corporations today. Grants, books, museum shows and auction sales help what boost the price of photographs.

Books, In themselves, rarely make money, but they do affect print prices. Websites and social networking sites do not yet affect print prices, but they may do so at some point due to their very large audiences.

© 2012 Paul Light all rights reserved