The team at Long-Sharp Gallery takes pride in its focus on service, education, ethics, and a genuine love of art.
Service: We strive to exceed your expectations.
This pillar of our business runs through everything we do. If you are considering acquiring a work of art from us and you envision a seamless process exceeding your previous experience and expectations -- that is the service we provide.
To us, service begins at the earliest opportunity – that is, when we know you have real interest in a work of art from our gallery. Beginning at that moment, “service” might include providing pertinent auction results or valuation statements secondary market works. It might envision a WeTransfer of framed and unframed images emailed from our digital library or mailed to your postal address if you prefer to have photos “in hand.” Perhaps you would like our design team to photoshop a piece of art into your space (from one or more vantage points) so you can get a better sense of what the work would like on site, or perhaps you’d like artwork recommendations for a particular room or area. We like “making the assist” when it comes to considering art work. We provide you with the information to assist in your ultimate decision - whether a piece is right for you.
If you’ve acquired a work from our gallery, you can count on us for any number of matters that follow, whether in terms of custom packing and shipping, assistance with framing or installation (in the case of larger-scale works), VAT calculations for international sales, or providing Certificates of Authenticity and/or updated Statements of Value for insurance. All of these are standard operating procedure here.
In addition, warranties come with the artwork and are part of our service. We warrant the authenticity of the artwork for as long as you have it. That is, if we say it is authentic, it is. Our warranties don’t expire after five years; rather, they last as long as you own the work.
Our gallery is run by a group of diligent, smart humans who believe that education is the foundation for just about everything – our inventory is no exception. We have taken the time to learn about our artists and their works so that we can share that knowledge. We keep an updated curriculum vitae for every primary market artist we represent; selected CV’s and/or bios will be found on our website. Most secondary market artists are well known. For those artists with catalogues raisonnés, we are happy to provide clients with access to those books and/or copies of the relevant pages. We will also share what we believe to be the newest important books on these artists. A “resources” button may be found on our website which directs visitors to important books/websites on the artists and provide a good starting point for this kind of important information.
Education about specific works or suites of works, especially as pertains to secondary market artists, is also available from the gallery. This includes articles and essays, secondary market assessments, and other important information.
We are often asked from newer collectors about how to begin collecting art “intelligently”, and we are happy to have these discussions anytime.
This list is not exhaustive. The topic is one we are passionate about. Suffice to say, if you want to know something, please ask us. If we don’t know the answer, we will find someone who does -- we’ll both be smarter because of it.
Education: Loving art and being smart about art are not mutually exclusive.
Ethics: Our moral and ethical code guides us.
Ethical business practices and how those impact our interactions with clients and artists alike are a hallmark of our business. To be sure we follow the ‘”best practices” outlined by the ADAA, Art Basel and the important Code stated by our own organization, the IFPDA – we strive for more. From the basics of doing what we say we will, to disclosures that might not be required by law (but should be required in fairness), to simply making every effort to do the right thing – these are examples of our ethical code and moral code. As is often said by owner Rhonda Long-Sharp, “I am monogamous. I have to sleep with myself every night.” Operating this way has cost us revenue and some working relationships, but it has not cost us sleep and continues to bring us peace.
When owner Rhonda Long-Sharp was unable to afford artwork, she would attend art openings and leave with “postcards” from those exhibits. Those postcards were the first pieces in her art collection. They were affixed to the wall with thumb tacks until she got her first job and earned money to frame them. For this reason, all LSG openings have postcards available to the public.
The gallery has a policy (broken once, don’t ask, we will not tell): if we don’t like the art, we will not exhibit it. Indeed, much of the gallery’s inventory is owned and not on consignment. With a few exceptions, all of the secondary market work is owned by the gallery. One way to say it is “the gallery’s inventory of owned artwork is pretty large.” The other, and more accurate way to say it, is “Rhonda Long-Sharp has an art addiction. She buys what she loves – if no one buys it, she gets to keep it.” You can tell this by walking through her home, which contains works by the artists on the gallery website.
When it comes to particular pieces of artwork, sometimes one, two or all of us fall in love with the artwork in our inventory so deeply that it becomes obvious that we do not want to sell it. (On occasion, as you may know depending on how we met, we’ve been known to hide works in art fair closets that we’re not entirely keen on selling.)
All of this is to say, we love and respect the jobs we have and the work that gives us this opportunity. We are in awe of those that have the ability and the chutzpa to create it and we are grateful each day to be in the presence of such talent.
Genuine Love of Art: Art enriches our lives every day in so very many ways.