Belt Auction

How do I auction off artwork?

I'm an artist that needs help with selling artwork. I noticed people say that auctions are the best for artist to see what their paintings are worth. I don't really know how to go about doing live auctions, but I do know about online auctioning like eBay. Where's a better place to auction off paintings? Live auctions or eBay? How do I find upcoming auctions in my area? Will people bid for a living artist's paintings, or mainly just well know passed artist (Picasso, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol)? Do live auctions cost money out of your pocket? Thanks for helping and supporting the arts!

Public Comments

1. I don't know about live auctions but I am very familiar with online selling as I have been doing it professionally for years. Ebay has a lot of artwork for sale on their site in every category BUT because of that, many of the prices are very, very, veryyyyyy low because the artists want to make a sale. I formerly sold on eBay but was eventually driven out because eBay allows sellers from China to sell on their USA site, which in turn destroys the potential profits of USA sellers because any items from China are extremelyyyyyyyyyy cheap and there is no way an American seller can meet their price. Not a good thing. I have been selling on Slooba.com and have been having good success on there because it is set up for ONLY USA sellers and it is also not saturated with sellers trying to make a buck. If you want a ton of traffic to see your artwork, then eBay would be the place. If you want to be the big fish and get the best profit out of your artwork, Slooba is the way to go. I did just check on Slooba before starting to write this to you and there are no current artists in their art category as of yet............so you definitely wouldn't have to worry about competition there for the time being. I have seen some advertising for it on Facebook, so they seem to be steadily growing. The other nice thing that I REALLY like is that they will often place some of my listings on their Facebook fan page as an announcement to the followers of the site........which on Facebook is over 5000 people right now. So that's some nice free advertising. Granted you can always place some of your artwork on both sites and see how it goes. If you do that, keep in mind that eBay does charge you to list an item for sale, whereas Slooba does not........so you will owe eBay money even if you do not sell anything, On Slooba there is only a small fee if your items sell. As a comparison, eBay's fees are higher but understandably so because they are so well known and a behemoth of a corporation. Good luck. You are going to do great!!
2. You would have to have already been an established artist before your work would go for anything more than squat at an auction. So bad idea. The only way I have heard of artists using auctions as a career move is to put art in an auction.... then have a friend bid a ridiculous amount of money for it... giving the artist a fake auction record of really high prices they can use in other sales, bios, etc..