How to Make Success Selling Art to Interior Designers
Interior designers do buy art. But the way the market actually works may surprise many artists.
For years, artists have been told that interior designers are a great market for their work.
There’s some truth to that. Designers do buy art, sometimes quite a lot of it.
But there’s also a misunderstanding that leads many artists to spend a great deal of time chasing a market that rarely works as they expect.
Years ago my friend Dick Harrison and I wrote a book called How to Sell Art to Interior Designers. It became one of the more popular resources I’ve published, and the companion article on this site has ranked well for years.
The book still contains useful insight into how designers think and how the design trade works. But after watching this market for many more years, I think it’s only fair to add a little context before you dive into the ideas below.
Interior designers do buy art.
But that doesn’t mean they are an easy or even practical market for most artists to pursue.
The reason is simple.
Designers don’t exist to sell art for artists. They buy art when they need it — and only when it fits a specific project.
That means the right size, the right subject, the right color palette, and the right price all have to align at the exact moment a project is nearing completion. If your work doesn’t fit that moment, the answer is usually “not this time.”
And “not this time” can easily turn into months or years.
Why Dick Succeeded
Dick understood that reality better than most artists because he didn’t approach the design trade the way artists usually do.
He operated more like a traveling art rep than a typical artist.
Long before the internet, Dick drove all over Florida in a van filled with prints from many artists — including some of his own work under a pseudonym. He built relationships with hundreds of designers, made appointments by fax, and regularly showed new work in person.
If a designer needed art for a project, Dick had options.
Lots of options.
Landscapes, florals, abstracts, botanicals, different sizes, different colors, different price points. He was a resource, not just an artist hoping someone would fall in love with a single body of work.
That difference matters.
Many artists look at interior designers the same way they look at galleries. They hope the designer will discover their work and start placing it with clients.
That’s rarely how it works.
Designers are busy professionals managing complex projects and demanding clients. Art is often one of the final pieces added to the space, after furniture, fabrics, finishes, and lighting have already consumed most of the time and budget.
When they finally go looking for art, they are solving a design problem, not exploring an artist’s portfolio.
That’s why Dick succeeded. He showed up with solutions.
Prints Were the Real Workhorse
Another important detail about Dick’s business is that most of what he sold were prints, not originals.
Interior designers are usually working within a budget, and art is often one of the final elements added to a project after most of the money has already been committed elsewhere.
As a result, reasonably priced prints often account for the majority of decorative art purchases.
Originals certainly sell — especially in high-end homes — but they are the exception rather than the rule.
I saw this firsthand when I worked for a gallery located in the Scottsdale Design Center, which catered heavily to interior designers. The gallery sold original art, prints, and custom framing, and for several years even ran a successful Costco roadshow program featuring giclée prints.
When designers were working on very expensive homes, we would sometimes load a truck with original artwork and install it throughout the house. When the homeowner arrived, they would walk through and decide which pieces they wanted to keep.
Occasionally someone would say, “I’ll take everything.”
But far more often the decision was to purchase two or three originals, and sometimes supplement them with prints by the same artist.
The key point is that the gallery wasn’t representing one artist. We were bringing designers a large selection of artists, subjects, styles, sizes, and price points — essentially a complete resource for solving their design needs.
That’s exactly the kind of service designers are looking for, and it’s one reason the market can be difficult for a single artist to break into on their own.
Is It Worth Pursuing?
For artists who enjoy networking, building relationships, and working to specification, the design trade can still produce sales.
Designers also have surprisingly long memories. Dick would occasionally get calls years later from someone asking if he still had a particular print they remembered from a portfolio he showed long ago.
But those sales came after years of persistent relationship building.
For most artists, that level of outreach simply isn’t the best use of time.
Cold-calling designers, sending emails, following up, and waiting for the right project to appear can consume enormous energy with very little return. Many artists would be better served focusing on collectors, galleries, licensing opportunities, or other direct channels where the interest in their work already exists.
None of this makes the advice in our book wrong.
It simply reflects a different kind of business model than most artists want to run today.
Dick built a career serving the interior design trade and did it extremely well. The lessons in How to Sell Art to Interior Designers still offer valuable insight into how that market works.
Just remember:
Selling art to interior designers is possible.
It’s just not the shortcut many artists hope it will be.
A Final Thought
Over the years I’ve noticed that artists are always searching for the next promising market — galleries, licensing, social media, art fairs, corporate buyers, interior designers.
Every one of those paths can work for someone.
But each also requires a particular kind of effort, temperament, and persistence.
Dick built his career serving the interior design trade because he enjoyed the process of building relationships with designers and showing them solutions they could use in their projects.
Most artists are wired a little differently.
They would rather spend their time making art than cold-calling design firms, maintaining portfolios of work in multiple styles, and waiting for the right project to appear.
There’s nothing wrong with either approach.
The real trick in building an art career isn’t chasing every possible opportunity. It’s choosing the paths that fit your temperament and the way you want to spend your time.
Dick found his lane and drove it extremely well.
Your job is to find yours.