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This fall, Gallery 1261 revisits the extraordinary terrain of high-definition realism with Tight 2, a follow-up to the landmark exhibition curated by Anthony Waichulis. Representational painters have long had their efforts categorized along a spectrum of definition or abstraction. On one end of that spectrum, dubbed loose, we tend to find artwork with wonderfully bold abstractions and incredibly masterful brevity. In contrast, the other end, dubbed tight, is populated with impressive realizations of great complexity and meticulous precision. Virtuosity can be found equally across the entirety of this spectrum; in the artists that can abstract a subject down to ten brushstrokes, the artists that choose to manifest that same subject with a thousand, and the countless artists chasing their own blend of definition and abstraction in between.
Tight 2 furthers the celebration of those that continue to define the landscape on the high-definition end of this spectrum of representation. The artists selected for this special showcase continue to awe and inspire with their endeavors, achieving levels of resolution and depth that elicit experiences of wonder and fascination for any viewer. As before, the show will feature demonstrable virtuosity, compelling content, and astonishing resolution in many forms. If you appreciate the discipline and dazzle of razor-sharp representation, this is not a show to miss…
Participating Artists
Gregory Block, Scott Fraser, Greg Gandy, Serge Marshennikov, Megan Elizabeth Read, Fred Wessel, Tony Curanaj, Alexander Chistov, Heather Neill, Jason Walker, Anthony Waichulis, Julie Beck, Helen Crispino, Rodney O’Dell Davis, Francisco Collado, Ruddy Taveras, Duffy Sheridan, Stanley Rayfield, Russell Harris, Jay Davenport, Michael P. Carson, Patrick Kramer, Ardith Starostka, Carlos Bruscianelli, Robert Stark
Exhibition Dates: October 10 – November 1, 2025
Gallery relationships and contracts are a crucial aspect of an artist’s career, and navigating them successfully requires a balance of business awareness and artistic integrity. As Oren’s situation highlighted in our last session, the decision to sign an exclusivity agreement with a new gallery, especially when already working with another, is a complex one with significant implications.
Exclusivity Agreements and Navigating Multiple Gallery Relationships
Exclusivity agreements are common in the art world and are designed to protect a gallery’s investment in an artist. By guaranteeing a gallery a certain level of control over an artist’s work, the gallery is more likely to invest in marketing, promotion, and sales. These agreements can vary widely in scope, from exclusive representation in a specific geographic region to a global exclusivity agreement that prevents the artist from working with any other gallery.
Oren’s situation presents a classic dilemma. On one hand, the new gallery’s interest is a sign of his growing success and could offer new opportunities and a broader audience. On the other hand, a long-standing relationship with his current gallery has been successful, and abruptly ending it or navigating a new arrangement could be fraught with challenges.
Open Communication: Have an open and honest conversation with both galleries. Discuss the new opportunity with your current gallery and the possibility of a new arrangement with the new gallery. Be transparent about your existing relationships and understand the nuances of the new agreement.
Defining the Scope of Exclusivity: A crucial step is to clarify the terms of the exclusivity agreement. Does it cover a specific geographic area? Is it for a limited time? Does it apply to all of your work or just certain pieces?
Respecting Existing Relationships: Regardless of the decision, it’s essential to handle the situation with professionalism and respect. Maintaining a positive relationship with your current gallery, even if you decide to move on, is vital for your reputation in the art world.
Discounts, Commissions, and Bypassing the Gallery
Another key aspect of gallery relationships is the handling of sales, including discounts and commissions. The standard commission for a gallery is typically 50%, though this can vary depending on the artist’s reputation and the gallery’s policies. This commission covers the gallery’s overhead, marketing, and sales efforts.
A common issue artists face is a collector wanting to buy directly from them to bypass the gallery and avoid the commission. While this might seem tempting for the artist as they would receive a larger portion of the sale, it can severely damage their relationship with the gallery. Galleries invest time, money, and resources into promoting their artists, and bypassing them is a breach of trust.
Handling Direct Inquiries: If a collector approaches you directly, always direct them back to the gallery. Explain that the gallery handles all sales and that they are the best point of contact for purchasing your work. This reinforces the gallery’s role and demonstrates your commitment to the partnership.
Maintaining Consistency: It’s important for an artist to maintain a consistent pricing structure across all channels, whether through a gallery, an online store, or a direct sale. Offering discounts to certain buyers can devalue the work and create confusion in the market.
Discussing Commissions and Discounts: If a situation arises where a discount is requested, always discuss it with your gallery first. The gallery may be willing to offer a small discount to close a sale, but this should be a mutual decision.
In short, gallery relationships are a partnership. For an artist to succeed, they must understand the business side of the art world, including the terms of contracts, the nuances of exclusivity, and the importance of respecting established relationships. Open communication and transparency are key to navigating these challenges and building a sustainable career.
Please take a look at the resources below for galleries’ contracts:
Smartemax: Actual Gallery Contract Samples.
Digital Contract Downloads
Guide to Artist Contracts and Agreements
Congratulations to Lois Pluskey on her recent artistic achievements!!! Her work has been selected for two highly respected exhibitions, the 2025 Richeson75 Figure/Portrait exhibit and the 2025 International Guild of Realism Fall Salon.
Her painting Color Me Curious (10x10", Oil on Panel), has been selected as a finalist in the 2025 Richeson75 Figure/Portrait exhibit. The Richeson75 Figure/Portrait exhibit is a juried online competition held by the Richeson School of Art & Gallery, which showcases a wide range of representational art. Being selected as a finalist for this show is a testament to the artist’s ability to capture the human form and expression with great skill.
Her painting Learning to Fly … Touch and Go (10x8", Oil on panel), has been juried into the 2025 International Guild of Realism Fall Salon. The International Guild of Realism (IGOR) is an esteemed organization dedicated to promoting realism in fine art. The IGOR Fall Salon is a juried online exhibition for members of the guild, and being juried into this show is a mark of distinction for a realist artist. The 2025 Fall Salon will be on display online from October 15 to December 20, 2025. This show attracts a global audience of collectors and art enthusiasts, providing a valuable platform for artists to showcase their work and gain recognition within the realist art community
Lois’ painting, A POP of Green (5x7", Oil on panel) is part of the Sweet Treats show at Rehs Contemporary, a gallery in New York City specializing in contemporary realism.
Laurie Szilvagyi is an award-winning artist known for her realistic artwork. Her artistic journey began later in life after a long career in commercial interior design, which she credits with heightening her sense of color, shape, and balance. After taking an abstract painting workshop, she discovered a new outlet for self-expression, but her work now encompasses both realism and abstraction, showing a versatility in her style.
Her paintings often feature subjects that reflect her love for nature and the diversity of culture. She creates visual stories inspired by her experiences, from urban life to serene natural landscapes. Szilvagyi is also an art instructor, sharing her knowledge of drawing, watercolor, and oil painting with others.
The inspiration for Laurie Szilvagyi’s painting, Henri and the Dirty Dozen, came from a few specific sources. First, a book on the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec had been sitting on her coffee table for a few years. Second, she had saved a “handful of old/soiled paint brushes.” When she connected the book and the brushes, the title for the painting “hit” her. The narrative for the piece began to flow as she arranged the eleven brushes and a palette knife (making a “dirty dozen”) on top of the book.
The brushes themselves held a special significance, as they were “discarded from the family of an artist that recently passed away and nobody wanted them as they were rock solid with varnish.” This personal connection to a fellow artist’s legacy seemed to fuel her creativity and led her to see a relationship between these tools and the world of the Moulin Rouge and the time period of Toulouse-Lautrec.
Art theft is a global issue, often involving high-value pieces and complex investigations. While some heists are meticulously planned, others are crimes of opportunity, highlighting the vulnerabilities in security at various institutions. The following cases illustrate some of the unique ways art has been stolen and recovered.
In 2005, a pair of the iconic ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz was stolen from a display case at the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. The theft, which left only a single sequin behind, baffled investigators for over a decade. The case became the subject of a documentary, “Ruby Red Handed: Stealing America’s Most Famous Pair of Shoes,” which details the dramatic investigation by the FBI that led to the slippers’ recovery in a sting operation in 2018. The thief, who was later identified and confessed to the crime, had been told by an associate that the slippers were adorned with real rubies and hoped to sell them. When he discovered the gems were fake, he got rid of the shoes.
The Norman Rockwell Gallery Heist
On a wintry night in 1978, seven Norman Rockwell paintings were stolen from Elayne Galleries in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. The thieves disabled the gallery’s alarm system and made off with the works, which were valued at over $500,000. Although the FBI took on the case, suspecting organized crime was involved, the trail went cold. However, the gallery’s owners, Elayne and Bonnie Lindberg, continued to pursue leads for two decades. Their persistence eventually led to the paintings being recovered. The theft remains one of the largest art heists in Minnesota history.
A Painting Found in Stuart Little
Not all stolen art is discovered through police work. A long-lost Hungarian painting, “Sleeping Lady with Black Vase” by Róbert Berény, was missing since World War II. In 2009, Hungarian art historian Gergely Barki was watching the family movie Stuart Little with his daughter when he spotted the painting hanging as a prop in the background. After a two-year effort, he successfully tracked down the painting, which a set designer had purchased for just $500 at an antique store. The rediscovered masterpiece was later sold at auction for over $285,000, underscoring how art can sometimes be found in the most unexpected places.
Vulnerability of Churches and Museums to Art Theft
Churches and museums, especially smaller ones, are prime targets for art theft because of their limited security. While large institutions like the Louvre have advanced systems, many others don’t have the funds for modern alarms, cameras, or guards.
Churches
Churches are especially vulnerable due to their open and welcoming nature. Many are open to the public for long hours, often without any security personnel, making it easy for thieves to case the building or hide inside. They typically steal small, valuable, and easy-to-carry items like chalices and statues rather than large, immovable works.
Museums
Even well-known museums face risks, with many heists involving insider threats. Employees or contractors with knowledge of the collection and security protocols can be involved in the thefts, as was the case with the British Museum. Additionally, many older museums have outdated physical security, like unreinforced windows, which can be exploited. This forces museums to balance the need for security with their public mission of making art accessible.
The Role of AI in Art Creation
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the creative landscape, serving not as a replacement for artists but as a powerful new tool. AI art generators, like Midjourney, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion, use complex algorithms to create images from simple text prompts, known as “prompt engineering.” Artists can use these tools to generate new pieces, blend styles, or simply to get inspiration.
For a fine artist, AI can be a powerful assistant in various stages of a project:
Reference and Study: Instead of searching for hours for the perfect reference photo, you can use AI to generate highly specific images. For instance, an AI tool could create a series of detailed studies on animal fur patterns—analyzing and generating variations that can inform your brushwork and texture. This allows you to explore complex subjects without relying on a limited number of existing images.
Rapid Sketching and Composition: AI can serve as a lightning-fast sketchbook for generating and refining ideas. You can input concepts to get hundreds of compositional layouts or color palettes in minutes. This can help you quickly prototype different approaches for a piece before committing to a final design on the canvas.
Exploring New Styles: Tools that use style transfer can apply the aesthetic of a historical movement—like Impressionism or Cubism—to one of your existing works, allowing you to experiment with different visual languages without having to repaint. It’s a way to break out of creative ruts and see your subject matter in a completely new light.
Looking to the Future of AI and Fine Art
The integration of AI into fine art is still in its early stages, and there is immense potential for further exploration. Future discussions could focus on:
Ethical Considerations: A deeper look into the complexities of using AI, including the ethical sourcing of training data and the concept of authorship in a collaborative human-AI process.
Creating Custom Models: Training your own AI models on your unique body of work to create a truly personalized digital partner that can generate images in your specific artistic style.
Hybrid Artworks: Exploring how AI-generated images can serve as a starting point for physical works—for example, projecting an AI-generated study onto a canvas as a guide or using it as a blueprint for a sculpture.
AI offers a fresh perspective and a suite of powerful tools that can help fine artists innovate, experiment, and streamline their creative workflow, ultimately leading to new forms of expression.
The topic of AI Image Generators comes up again and again. AI image generators are a type of generative artificial intelligence (AI) that can create new, unique images from scratch based on a text description, known as a “prompt.” Instead of searching a database for existing images, these tools use complex machine learning models to synthesize visual content from the ground up.
Check out the Smartermax article: No, AI Image Generators are not a Threat to the Arts.
There are a lot of AI Image Generator software available, below are just a few:
Midjourney
Stable Diffusion
Dream by Wombo
Dall-E
Starry-ai
Nightcafe
Several tools are available to help you determine if an image was created by AI. These detectors analyze various aspects of an image, like pixel patterns and metadata, to identify signs of AI generation. Keep in mind that no detector is 100% accurate, as AI technology is always evolving.
List of AI Image Detectors
Illuminarty: This tool offers a comprehensive analysis of both AI-generated images and text. It can detect images from popular generators like Midjourney and DALL-E, even when metadata has been removed.
Hive Moderation: Hive provides a suite of AI detection services for images, video, text, and audio. It’s a robust platform often used for content moderation at scale.
Winston AI: While known for text detection, Winston AI also offers a feature to detect AI-generated and deepfake images. It’s used by many for its high accuracy claims.
AI or Not: This tool is straightforward and quick. It’s designed to authenticate images, videos, and even voice recordings, and it’s a good choice for fast checks.
WasItAI: A simple, free tool that helps you identify AI-generated photos. You can easily upload an image and get a quick result.
Foto Forensics: This is a more advanced tool that uses Error Level Analysis (ELA) to detect variations in compression levels within a JPEG image, which can indicate manipulation.
Undetectable AI: This platform focuses on making AI-generated content appear more “human,” but it also has an image detector to check for AI-generated images, deepfakes, and manipulated photos.
Brushes mentioned:
[ARTIFY 25-Piece Professional Paint Brush Set
Artify Extreme Detail Paint Brushes, Miniature Paint Brushes for Models
KUM Brushes](https://kum.net/en/acrylic-brushes-and-oil-brushes/)
In our last session, we discussed art competitions and the importance of establishing a provenance as an artist. We talked about the value of entering specific competitions, such as the ARC, with some feeling that the costs have become excessive. We also discussed alternative competitions that offer good exposure for lower entry fees. It was emphasized that competitions and publications are crucial for building an artist’s provenance, especially early in their career. To help with this, below is a list of vetted competitions, grants, and fellowships.
UPDATED FOR 2025: Art Competitions/Grants/Fellowships
Anthony has completed the Grand Lexicon. The Lexicon is a structured visual vocabulary designed to help artists build fundamental drawing and painting skills. This tool breaks down complex visual concepts into terms to develop technical proficiency and visual understanding. The lexicon is ever-growing; it currently has over 1000 entries.
Anthony’s High-Definition Painting in Oils workshop at the Blair Center for the Arts in Charleston, SC was a great success!
Thank you to everyone who attended.
As soon as he returned to PA, he was invited back for the next year!
Stay tuned for upcoming dates.
Quick Draw: Portrait Sketching from Life - Date: 9/16/2025-10/21/2025 |
"Speed and efficiency are the name of the game with our fast and focused 2.5 portrait sketch class. If you’re ready to sharpen your portrait drawing skills, join us for this lively and engaging six-week class where you’ll tackle the challenge of drawing from a live model, one sketch at a time. "
Color Bootcamp - A Practical Guide to Dynamic Color - Date: 1/2/2026-1/4/2026
Tired of creating piles of mud? Are you seeking a dependable and consistent paint mixing method? Do you want to spend 3 days with fabulous people learning things that will make your oil paintings better? Of course you do! In this three-day in-person workshop (ideal for both absolute beginners and experienced painters), we will delve into the complex world of color mixing, perception, and relationships.
Color Bootcamp Level 2: Color, Mood, and Magic - Date: 8/19/2026-8/23/2026
Do you ever feel stuck relying on limited image references or constrained by what you can set up in your space? Do you have a color crush on another artist and wish you could incorporate their magic into your work? Are you eager to work more inventively or combine multiple inspirations, but worry about achieving a cohesive painting? In this transformative 5-day workshop, you’ll gain the confidence to move beyond single references and unlock the full potential of color harmony and palette manipulation.
A Deep Dive Into Color With Debra Keirce - 9/17/2025 - 9/19/2025
“We will explore the three main attributes of oil color. This class will be a wonderful experience for students at any skill level. While color can be extremely complicated, it’s also one of the basics, and artists at all skill levels, working with varied media, apply these principles.”
Elizabeth City Splash Week - 9/29/2025 - 10/4/2025
“If you have ever wondered how to capture a likeness, how to make a sketch where the subject is recognizable and real, this is the class for you. We will focus on quick sketching that can be done on location.”
Free Demonstration - Debra Keirce at Seaside Art Gallery - 11/1/2025
“Family-friendly art demonstration all day, 10am to 5 pm, at a huge gallery with ten rooms of paintings, drawings, sculptures, estate jewelry, and so much more.”
In between our bi-weekly Artist Round Table Sessions feel free to come and join the discussions on Smartermarx.
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