Viewing page 3 of 9

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Virginia Dwan Interview 3-3-3

Or financial an aspect to their exhibition. For that matter, the gallery wouldn’t like that very much either because it’s to our advantage to have the works presented as choices for exhibition, period. It would be a knotty problem how to make it clear to people that they can buy things—

E.V.: All I do is send them to the gallery or have them contact the gallery. This is a service to the gallery and to the client. They may not know that these things are available. I’ve had people come in from Canada and come whispering to me --

V.D: Yes, but your gallery has a very warm and intimate feeling about it, so that people do come whispering to you. Whereas in some of our larger museums around the city one doesn’t know where to go whispering to somebody, it’s quite subterranean finding a person, one has to approach a guard, and that’s embarrassing-—

E.V.: Yes, that wouldn’t be very wise. I quite agree with you. I’m wondering about what arrangements you have with your artists, in a monetary way. Is it different with each artist according to his needs?

V.D.: It does differ according to the artist’s needs. In the past we had a situation in America where painting was of prime interest and was the prime activity of the artist as we know today. And canvas and pigment were not really that expensive to deal with. And of course they also did their sketches which were very inexpensive for them to deal with. So aside from their rent and their eating, the artist was not really presented with a living problem as he was working. It was in those days however,  that I started working on a contract basis with certain European artists at that time, because for one thing they had learned to expect in Europe that one did have a contract with their dealer, and they were painters. I have a situation now where I have only one painter, one person who works on canvas, in the gallery. ^[[Who is Ad Harris?]], most artists do have a monthly remittance which enables them to do their work and cover their living expenses. And further than that, when they find

(more)