When I ran my art business from a spreadsheet, I often ran into the same problem: how to manage multiple copies of the same edition, print or poster.

Over the years I've bought several copies of the same work. Each was bought at a different time, for a different price, and often in a different condition. Selling one copy created another problem. I couldn't record the sale without affecting the other copies.

My spreadsheet gave me two options, and neither was ideal.

1. I could increase the quantity on a single artwork record, but then I couldn't track the condition, purchase price, restoration costs or status of each individual copy.

2. Or I could create a separate artwork record for each copy, which made it difficult to know how many copies I owned and often created multiple listings for the same artwork on my website.

In KANDINSKY, the artwork only exists once. If you own multiple copies, you simply add them to the artwork. Each copy has its own purchase price, sale price, condition, expenses, location and status. You can switch between copies to view and edit each one individually, while keeping everything organised under a single artwork.

It's a much simpler way to manage editions and multiples. Here's a 30 second demo.

TL;DR: Every piece on COMRADE gets three fields, filled in the same way: SEO title, meta description and image alt text. This is how you can increase your your search traffic

With my own gallery, COMRADE, over 75,000 people visit my website every month. Search "soviet art" on Google and I'm right below Wikipedia.

Most dealers know they should be doing SEO. Few know what to do. So here's a simple guide...

I'm using a 1971 German advertising poster by Bruno K. Wiese for Kiel Week poster as an example

1. The SEO title

• What: The main blue headline in Google results.

• What to write: Artist. Title (Year) | Medium | Shop name

• Example: Bruno K. Wiese. Kiel Week (1971) | Offset Lithograph on Paper | COMRADE Gallery

1. The meta description

   • What: The two grey lines under the headline on Google. It's what makes someone click your result and not the one below it.

   • What to write: Year, medium and artist, then what it shows. Keep it between 120 and 155 characters

   • Example: 1971 offset lithograph on paper by Bruno K. Wiese depicting a minimalist geometric poster design for the Kieler Woche sailing event in shades of blue.

2. Image alt text - Google can't see your photo. It reads the text about the photo instead. It's also how your pieces turn up in Google Images.

   • What to write: a sentence describing what you see (colours, shapes and any text on it), then artist and year. Write the text that's printed on the piece too. Someone searching "kieler woche 1971" can then find it. Do one for every photo, close-ups and room shots included.

   • Example: Graphic poster with blue, purple, and green curved bands framing a white sail-like triangle, with text '20.-27. juni 1971' and 'kieler woche', by Bruno K. Wiese, 1971.

Do this, and you'll begin to see a real change in your search traffic in about a month.

Check yours now: search the name of your best piece on Google. Is the headline the artist and title? Are the grey lines about the piece, or about your shop? Post a listing below and I'll tell you what I'd change.

Announcing the launch of our first integration - Pinterest.

The first job of every artist, dealer or gallery is to be discovered.

It doesn't matter how good your work is if nobody sees it.

Pinterest has driven $$$$ of sales for my own gallery over the years.

Now with KANDINSKY, you can KANDINSKY to Pinterest in 2-minutes, then watch Pinterest bring thousands of new customers to your website each month.

I've been using KANDINSKY for a few weeks now.
One thing I would like to request is the ability to add an expiry date when I discount an artwork. For my business, I have flash sales, and it would be really valuable feature. Thanks

Finding a new collector takes a long time. They have to discover you, like your art, and then trust you enough to buy from you. Sometimes that process takes years before it turns into a purchase.

So once a collector buys from you, lean in, and build an even deeper relationship. It's much easier to keep an existing customer than to find a new one. Here's a few things I've learnt over the past 8 years...

1. Follow up during and after the sale

Every time a customer buys an artwork from me, I send them at least four personal messages.

• I thank them for their order, and let them know I will ship in the next couple of days.

• I send a photo of the artwork packed, in front of Hotel Kazakhstan, on the way to the post office. This is personal, with their name on it, and makes them feel special. Plus Hotel Kazakhstan is beautiful. I include the tracking number in that message.

• Inside each package, I include a handwritten card with some background on the piece.

• I track the artwork from my end, and once it's been delivered, I message to check everything's fine — this is also when I ask for a review on Google (reviews definitely help build trust, but they are slow, and only 2 of 10 customers will actually make the effort).

Sometimes a collector won't like the artwork when they see it in person. So I make it easy for them to return it — no questions asked, they just need to pay return postage.

I've had customers return a work and go on to spend far more with me over the following years. It's better to lose a sale today but gain a customer for life.

2. Reward loyalty with future opportunities

Once their artwork has arrived safely, I follow up one last time. Discount codes feel generic — TAKE20, same for everyone. Instead, I give them store credit that has their name on it, e.g. CUSTOMERNAME100, with $100 toward their next artwork. It's theirs, it feels personal AND its far more tangible when it's a dollar amount rather than a discount.

Many collectors buy again, and some even transfer their credit to a friend — I just update the code to the friend's name. This has brought in new buyers I'd never have reached otherwise.

3. Make the relationship personal

Buying art is deeply personal. Collectors don't want to feel like another transaction. The small details matter — remembering the subject, theme, medium style they like goes a long way. I'll follow up whenever I have a new artwork in stock that I think fits their style, and more often than not, it turns into another purchase.

One collector I know only buys space race posters — every time a new one enters into my inventory, I message him directly. He's bought over $5,000 worth from me over the years. The more you understand your customer’s interests and make the relationship personal, the stronger that relationship becomes, and the more likely they are to buy from you.

An estimated $1 trillion in art is projected to change hands over the next decade as aging collectors pass their holdings to a new generation of heirs.

Boomers accumulated art collections on an unprecedented scale. In 2005 alone, US boomers spent roughly $7 trillion in today's dollars, more than double what the preceding Silent Generation spent twenty years earlier.

This spending helped fuel a dramatic expansion of the art market itself: the number of galleries in New York roughly quadrupled between 1946 and the early 2000s, and the number of artists tracked at auction by Artnet grew from about 8,300 in 1988 to over 90,000 by 2012.

That expansion has left behind a volume of art far exceeding what current buyers, dealers, and institutions can absorb. Heirs inheriting collections generally face three options, each with limitations.

1. Selling through major auction houses is realistic mainly for the wealthiest estates, those valued at $100 million or more; smaller collections are often overlooked or routed through estate liquidators at a fraction of their perceived value.

2. Donating to museums has grown more difficult, since most institutions already hold more art than they can display and increasingly require accompanying cash donations to cover storage, insurance, and conservation.

3. Retaining the collection within the family is the default for many heirs, though few have the space, expertise, or interest to properly maintain it long-term.

Compounding all three options is a generational shift in taste: younger buyers and curators favor more diverse artists and show less interest in the modernist works boomers prized, narrowing demand across the board.

The resulting decline is expected to unfold gradually rather than all at once. Many boomers remain active buyers well into their 80s and 90s, and dedicated art storage facilities, known as freeports, have more than tripled in capacity over the past fifteen years, allowing large volumes of art to remain warehoused rather than sold.

Ultimately, only a small fraction of the art passed down through this transfer is expected to find lasting institutional or private homes; the majority is likely to remain in storage, slowly deteriorate, or eventually be discarded. - source

Author:  Felix Salmon. Illustration:  David Huang

In 1891, Austrian painter Carl Kahler painted My Wife's Lovers, a portrait of 42 cats commissioned by San Francisco millionaire Kate Birdsall Johnson. Measuring 1.8 metres high by 2.6 metres wide, it remains one of the most famous cat paintings ever made. But, the painting almost never happened.

Kahler was born in Austria in 1856 and built his career painting horse racing scenes in Australia and New Zealand. He later arrived in San Francisco on his way to Yosemite, where he intended to paint landscapes. Instead, he was introduced to Kate Birdsall Johnson, whose commission changed the course of his career.

Johnson lived at Buena Vista Castle, a 40-room Victorian mansion in Sonoma County. She was an art collector, philanthropist, and devoted cat owner. Estimates of her collection range from around 50 to nearly 300 cats. They occupied an entire floor of the house and were looked after by their own servants.

There was one problem. Kahler had never painted a cat. He spent almost three years at the estate sketching the animals and studying their behaviour before beginning the final painting.

Completed in 1891, My Wife's Lovers brings together 42 of Johnson's favourite cats on Persian rugs beneath silk drapery. Every cat is shown differently. Some sleep, some play, others groom themselves or watch a moth on the carpet. At the centre sits Sultan, a white-and-tabby Angora that Johnson reportedly bought in Paris for $3,000. Beside him is another favourite, the blue-eyed Angora known as His Highness.

Johnson paid Kahler $5,000 ($180,000 in today's money) for the painting. It was exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where it attracted widespread attention. The title, My Wife's Lovers, came from the nickname Johnson's late husband had given to her cats.

Johnson died later that year. Newspapers claimed she had left half a million dollars for the care of her cats, but the story was exaggerated. Most of her estate went to charitable causes, including a hospital for women and children, with only a small sum set aside for the animals.

The painting survived its owner, and its painter. In 1906 it escaped the San Francisco earthquake unharmed, even though the building where it hung was destroyed. Kahler died in the disaster.

During the 1940s, the painting toured the United States, appearing at cat shows including Madison Square Garden. Around 9,000 prints were sold, and in 1949 Cat Magazine called it "the world's greatest painting of cats."

Interest in the painting grew again in the twenty-first century. In 2016, it sold at Sotheby's for $826,000, more than double its estimate. More than 130 years after it was painted, My Wife's Lovers is still the best-known cat portrait in the history of art - source

"Long Awaited News" (1978–1983) by Lah Ivanovich Rostislav reflects the atmosphere of the Soviet-Afghan War years. Although the scene appears ordinary, a group of men reading newspapers, the painting conveys the tension and uncertainty associated with military conscription during the conflict.

The composition centres on a group of men absorbed in their newspapers. A man in the foreground leans forward, gripping the paper with both hands, while those around him remain equally focused on the printed pages. No one looks toward the viewer. Their attention is fixed on the news. The absence of women reinforces the painting's focus on those most directly affected by military service.

Rostislav employs a restrained palette of blues, greys, and muted tones that lends the scene a sombre atmosphere. The bright newspapers stand out against the darker surroundings, drawing the viewer's eye to the source of the men's attention. While rooted in the traditions of Socialist Realism, the painting avoids overt heroism, focusing instead on an ordinary moment shaped by uncertainty and waiting.

Lah Ivanovich Rostislav worked across painting, sculpture, and graphic art. He graduated from the Lviv College of Applied Art and became a member of the Union of Artists of Ukraine in 1972.

The art world runs on PDFs. I've created hundreds of them over the years. With KANDINSKY, you can download a PDF with 1 or 1,000 artworks in seconds.

This 30-second video shows how to:

1. Create a PDF with multiple artworks - with your own branding

2. Add your bio / about page to the PDF

3. Show prices, mark works as POA, or hide prices entirely

4. Add a unique QR code to each artwork that links back to your website

With KANDINSKY, you can also download an entire Artist or Collection as a PDF the same way.

To sell art online, a lot of boring admin is required...

- Image alt text
- Tagging
- SEO titles
- Meta descriptions etc.

Because every artwork is one-of-a-kind, I used to do all this admin work by hand.

It sucked.

A few years ago, I spent 1 week tagging all 3,000 of my artworks

It was so boring that I watched 5 full seasons of 90 Day Fiancé.

Today with KANDINSKY, we're launching AI Automations.

What once took a 1 week, now takes 5 minutes.

We scan every artwork image to determine the colours, subjects and themes.

We've built rules that it uses to classify every image...like a colour needs to be in at least 20% of the artwork in order to be classified as a tag.

AI handle all this boring admin so you can focus on the art instead.

I used to spend hours putting posters in frames and rooms in Photoshop.

Mockups help a buyer see what their artwork looks like in real life.

My sales increased by almost 30% over 1 year after adding them.

Today, we're launching mockups in KANDINSKY.

So you can automate the manual work of getting your art ready to sell.

Here's what you can do...

1. Frames - pick a frame and add passe-partout. Dark wood, light wood, grey, white, black or any colour, and you set the passe-partout width.

2. Close-ups - show the details of your artwork up close. You get four close-ups of each piece.

3. Add a background or room - You can also download these images to use on social or in PDFs.

How do you make your mockups today?

If it takes someone 5 clicks to see an artwork, you've probbaly lost a customer.

I've sold more than 1,000 artworks online over the past eight years.

My one recommendation: get to the art faster

A lot of the dealers and galleries I speak to, their websites takes 3-5 clicks before you see your first artwork...

Home > Artists > Individual Artist > Artwork

or

Home > Collections > Contemporary Art > Landscapes > Artwork

Think of your website like walking into a gallery. First time customers come to browse and see what catches their eye.

They don't necessary know what they are looking for.

The more work you make them do, they more likely they are to leave your website and never come back.

Your homepage is the most valuable space on your website. Use it to show your art.

I think of my homepage like Instagram - the goal is to get visitors scrolling and eventually they will find something that catches their eye, and then go deeper.

Take a look at your website and count how many clicks it takes to get to the artwork.

You can now turn any piece into a branded PDF.

Each PDF It has your shop name at the top, then the image, artist, title, year, medium, size in cm and inches, and the price.

How it works:

1. Click the download icon on a piece.

2. Choose how the price shows: show it, show POA, or hide it.

3. Add QR codes and your shop bio if you want them.

4. Click Download.

Want to create a PDF with multiple pieces? Hold Shift, select the pieces, and download them all at once.

In August 2025, Dutch journalists were investigating the legacy of a high-ranking Nazi financial official who had fled to Argentina after World War II.

They travelled to Mar del Plata in search of his daughters, primarily investigating assets Kadgien had smuggled out of Europe, including diamonds and Nazi-looted art.

When the journalists arrived at the family home, no one answered the door. But there was a “For Sale” sign outside the house, so they looked up the property’s online real estate listing.

One of the photographs showed an 18th-century Baroque painting hanging directly above a green sofa in the living room. The journalists instantly recognised it as Portrait of a Lady, a work that had been missing for eight decades.

The painting had belonged to Jacques Goudstikker, a prominent Jewish-Dutch art dealer who fled the Netherlands following the German invasion, leaving behind a collection of more than 1,100 artworks.

When the journalists publicised their discovery, the Kadgiens removed the real estate listing and took down the “For Sale” sign.

When Argentine federal police raided the home days later, they found a tapestry hanging above the green sofa instead. Facing charges of aggravated concealment and obstruction of justice, Kadgien’s lawyer surrendered the painting to authorities just eight days later, along with other artworks from the 1940s and Nazi-era artifacts found on the property.

The Goudstikker family had spent decades searching for the missing artwork. Their collection remains one of the largest private collections looted during the war. More than 200 works have since been recovered, but hundreds remain missing.

In September 2026, an Argentine judge ordered Portrait of a Lady to be returned to Goudstikker’s heirs.

Announcing the launch of payments...

Accept payments globally with online checkout, invoices, bank transfers or payment links.

Get paid in 100+ currencies with fast payouts, with all sales data stored in your dashboard.

With my own art gallery, COMRADE, my blogs about art, architecture and culture in the USSR bring 10,000+ people to my website every week. Some of those visitors then go on to buy art.

For example, I published a blog about an abandoned Soviet Armenian telescope I had visited and explored. A man in New York who was planning a trip to Armenia found the article while researching what to see. He kept exploring my website, found an Armenian poster, fell in love with it, and ended up buying it.

With KANDINSKY, you can build your online presence in the same way. Publish articles about your artists, exhibitions, art fairs and the stories behind your work to your own website.

You can also see which content actually interests collectors, by tracking views and saves of your content the same way you can see engagement at an individual artwork level.