Gallery owners and managers balance taste-making with sales; marketing with artists’ management; art and business.

Tony Davidson has been doing it at Kilmorack Gallery for twenty five years. It’s an extraordinary success story in what might appear to be testing circumstances in rural Inverness-shire. He’s just written an engrossing - and widely acclaimed - book about his experiences (Note 1).

Roger Spence met him over a coffee in his lovely gallery and talked about art, working with artists and running a gallery.

Janette Kerr: Cold Wind Across The Sea

Starting with the artists:

ARTISTS

How should galleries relate to artists?

“If you're working in art, writing about art and understanding it, you have to connect with what the artist is connecting to. Paul Bloomer: he's connecting with the creatures in the natural world... he's like a prophet that speaks to the animals and they tell us tales, that's his ‘thing’. I think if an artist is worth anything they have a compulsion to do something and that's their connection. Alan MacDonald has a need to understand human nature and the complexity of the world.  Every artist has a ‘thing’. The secret is to understand and facilitate it.”

But can there be many ‘things’?

“Not really. When you actually come down to the core, it becomes one ‘thing’, but that might be more esoteric. Peter Davis: he's always drawn to the sea. Why is that? And Janette Kerr, What does the sea hold? Not just to the artist, but to us as humans. I think people are drawn to the sea for some sort of ancestral memory, maybe. It means a lot to them.”

Is it possible for many artists in Scotland to make an appropriate income for the effort that they put in?

“Well some do. You just have to be very, very good, but it shouldn’t be about the money”

Does quality always pay?

“If you just try and do a landscape that you think people want to buy, you'll be the same as another twenty people doing landscapes. A lot of the best artists are following their own ‘thing,’ hoping its commercial. Much the same as running a gallery. You find your ‘thing’ and with luck it’s commercial.

Artists are always on a path. I guess someone like Alan MacDonald does all right. He's selling a lot in America, but he's just devoted to what he does. He's very professional. He thinks about material and presentation. There's a whole load of stuff that has to be done. If you don't do the practical stuff you're not going to get there either.”

There are plenty of artists in our world who are publicists and they're very successful.

“Yes. Everything is unique. Some paintings are more suited to Instagram. Others aren't. I'm just trying to support people who have a mission, a compulsion to do something. It's a learning experience, that's what it's all about. I guess it's part of the human condition to do this. If that's Jeff Bezos' ‘thing’, he's probably not just thinking about the bottom line. He’s probably thinking intellectually about how he can make his business so efficient that nobody else can survive... and he's pretty much done that.”

Paul Bloomer: Moon-Tide

We’re sitting under a painting by Alan MacDonald. Do you think Alan MacDonald thinks in this way?

“Well yes, he's trying to push it all the time. He's quite obsessed. He's going very deeply into every painting. Once he's done it he won't do it again. These are not baked beans. Every brush stroke is torn from his flesh... or whatever…”

There's something that you said in the book about being interested in galleries that promote deep-looking artists.

“If somebody's not trying to get somewhere…if there's not a story behind it..”

Everybody's got a story, have they not?

“I'm sorry. If they're trying to be somebody else, it's not really their story. If you're doing the same thing for twenty five years, you don't even need to sign it.”

If you felt an artist was not developing, would it change your view of how often you would present them?

“Give them a little bit of air occasionally, and you might find out that ten years later they've had a revelation, and they're doing things again. It's a long-term relationship. There are a lot of artists who are a bit depressed at the moment and you can't paint if you're depressed. I guess Van Gogh probably painted when he was manic rather than depressed.

You can't paint when you're depressed?

“You probably can, but people won't want to buy it. You might be able to, but I know a lot of people have problems believing in themselves. You have to feel as though you're going somewhere. Artists have to be happy with the work that they're doing. And it isn't easy selling things. Paul Barnes should be selling much better than he is. His work takes a long time to paint. It cuts down your options as well. Everybody has to figure it out themselves.”

Unsolicited approaches: I can't imagine you respond positively to any of them?

“Well if somebody came in with the right painting, but most of them come in with work that isn't exciting enough. I would absolutely love to see more young artists with direction. I'd love to see more young exciting artists. But their work needs to have the right energy for the gallery to take it on. I wouldn't mind mentoring people, but you can only do what you can do.”

Is that an issue across the board in Scottish art?

“Yes it is. Lecturers and art colleges can be my nemesis if they're into conceptual work. A student can go to art school wanting to paint. They want to create, and they get told that to make things is evil or un-artistic, old fashioned. Art schools once taught drawing and they've stopped doing that now. Glasgow School of Art went heavily down the conceptual route. I remember getting a phone call from somebody who wanted to produce a feature about Glasgow School of Art, wanting emails of ex-pupils. So I gave him John Byrne. I phoned him first and he wanted to have nothing to do with Glasgow School of Art, because it's become a shadow of what it once was.

Many young artists are distracted by Instagram. Fifty people clicking ‘like’ doesn't mean anything really. To succeed, you have to get good enough to afford to frame new work, and sculptures can be expensive to produce.”

“True artists": that was a really interesting phrase you talked about in your book.

“I guess that's people with a connection or a compulsion to follow their muse. They have to have a muse, a mission. I guess a mission is important for all of us.

Alan MacDonald: The Temple Of Life

Is Alan MacDonald true to his muse, because if he is, he has a strange muse?

“Yes, it's playgrounds of the mind. He had a show called ‘Playgrounds of the Mind’. It's a journey. Every painting is a journey. And a struggle. It's all about creating movement and instant. That guy's match is just about to be lit, and maybe not…the bell's about to be rung... it's always fun... so he's got his ‘thing’ and he takes it all the way. I guess there's not one size fits all.”

“There's no ultimate truth. I guess a lot of what makes a piece work comes down to composition. There's a certain geometry behind what works well. Artists need to have a technique, but technique alone isn’t enough. You have to know where you're going, and that gives you 'the thing'. Unless you have that direction... If you're trying to do a landscape, you can't do everything about it, because the world's too big. You must focus. Every artist should follow their unique path.”

You're arguing for the conceptual concept.

“No, because the journey of actually making something is where you discover things. If you find out what your ‘thing’ is and spend 25 years investigating it, hopefully you'll end up somewhere interesting. Getting in the zone is where the magic happens.”

Is that the problem for young artists? It takes a long time to develop this?

“It's always been the case. I think I said in the book that when Helen Denerley and James Hawkins had that show, they were both 45, and that seemed to be the age that everyone was making it. 45 is 25 years after graduating. It does take a long time.”

Do you think it's often the case that artists can't articulate their own ‘thing’?

“Yes, that can be the case. Maybe 25 years on  and they can say ‘that's what it was.’ A lot of creative artistic acts are made on an instinctive rather than a purely rational level.”

“What are the underlying things that make all good art good art? That is the big question. A lot of galleries don't ask these questions.”

Of themselves?

“Of art, or anything. And I do. Maybe I'll give you the answer in the next book if I find it. I think there are certain mathematical bass notes, not just composition and colour... there are other things at work. Unseen universal principles which are found in oil paintings, watercolour, music, dance, the whole lot. Finding that thread makes it worthwhile connecting and important. All the synergy that goes on. That's sort of what I'm looking for. The cosmic note.”

We come back to that phrase that you used earlier, which is ‘deep-looking’.

"Deep-looking artists…Yes, I’m not going for the sort of decorative school.”

Is your clientele deep-looking?

“Some of them are; some of them aren't. They like things that look pretty as well and so do I. ” (laughs)

A SUCCESSFUL GALLERY

Can we come on to the business? What makes a successful art gallery?

“Every art gallery is different. It reflects whoever's doing it. Distinctiveness, yes. Determination: a lot of it. Whatever I've got here, which is quite distinctive, exists because I've made it work. Somebody else might have come in and filled the place full of jumpers and soap…the touristy thing.  I've got a vision. This ‘start at the top and work down' is kind of my ‘thing’. You can't start with soaps and jumpers and then suddenly show Gerald Laing. If you're not successful, you could do it the other way round.”

Is it just the art that makes a successful art gallery?

“The client has to feel confident that they're in a good place. Kilmorack does well because I connect with everybody through the technology. I'm constantly reinventing things, at a ridiculous rate, which I don't think anybody else would do. That's just a personality flaw.”

You were managing a decent level of success before the internet.

“Yes. I guess I was. But before that, the Highlands always had people from all over. It's always been a bit of a melting pot for rich people, so I'd have lots of Italians one year, lots of Germans, Russians, Greeks, whatever, so I always had a broad base, which has probably made it easier to slip into the technology. I've got the best work. I'm not here to be nice to people. I'm here to do my job.”

What is your job?

“Just trying to do the best I can for the artists. If I've got work up for a month, to try my best to do what I can do.”

Do you see yourself as doing a job on behalf of your audience/your clients as well?

“Yes, I'm the middle man. Right in the middle. I'm the synapse, the conduit that joins things up. However, you just don't know who is going to come in. I remember Tatyana Bersudsky of Sharmanka saying that you can do all your planning and try and get people to come in but at the end of the day it doesn't make much difference. It's in the lap of the Gods sometimes.”

When you started off, you had a lot of the same artists.

“Yes. It's because it was the best I could get. It always has been.”

And your taste hasn't changed?

“It's changed with the artists. I see this as a University. I'm learning at an incredible rate. I don't mind if I lose a bit of money if, at the end of the day, if I've learned something. The bottom line will look after itself.”

Is that part of being a successful gallery - not to be looking at making fortunes?

“Yes, and just being very, very good at it. A lot of galleries you can go in and they've got the same sort of stuff. I can pick and chose what the gallery shows, in a way most other galleries can't. That's really the secret.

I don't really want to go down the same road as everybody else. I've tried it before: art fairs and hired venues. Once upon a time you could do an art fair and make an awful lot of money. Now, I'm just not so sure.”

“Cyril Gerber probably had a similar philosophy to me. He was just trying to show young artists and do the best. He wasn't chasing the bottom line all the time. He was a nice guy. That might be where we are dissimilar. But he was well respected and liked and would always give everybody a nod and a wink.”

“I don't want to show something if I don't feel good about it. I guess rejecting artists is a difficult thing, that's the hardest thing of the lot.”

People who come here get a kick out of it, and they respond to you getting a kick out of it.

“I do get kicks out of running a gallery really. I've got a licence to be a bit sort of odd, like an artist, and a little bit of that rubs off…”

You're a bit of a performer in that respect.

“Not really, I just try to be myself.”

Are you a curator, an artistic director?

“Well, I'm not the financial department. But I do think about the bottom line. I think about survival. The more money the gallery makes, the more toys it can have and the more it can do to promote artists.”

What advice would you give to somebody in their twenties who wants to do what you are doing...

“You can't do that. They would have to be themselves. I guess every gallery is itself.  That's why if one gallery sells to another person it can no longer be the same gallery. It will have changed.”

Where do young people come into the world of Scottish art then? I don't know of any young gallery owners in Scotland.

“They might be trying but not being successful. There are probably people starting things and not becoming visible.”

How do they get better at doing it?

“Some might not just have it in them. You need a certain exquisite taste, and an ability to do things that other people won't do. I've got quite a broad range of skills. I managed to jack the roof up with acrowprops. But I guess I had an opportunity. Young people need to have opportunities. 25 years ago there were properties you could get cheaply. Maybe there are clever ways of doing these things nowadays. You have to be confident enough to think outside of the box. That's what young people should be able to do. They should be able to go on a crazy journey like me, but not my crazy journey, because that's mine! I would love to see young people making their mark. I can’t think of anything more vital for our future.”

Are you competitive with anybody?

“No. Every gallery is different. The difference is part of the strength.”

And how do you think your artists regard you?

“Oh, they must love me. They love you until you sell something very expensive, and then they say: ‘you could take less commission’(laughs). I don't want to give an ABC of how to run a successful gallery. I don't think it works like that. There isn't a formula.”

Everybody has got their own formula.

“You have to find your own USP. I'm quite good at it. I have thought about things. I'm a shrewder business person than I make out, and I'm very, very fussy.”

If Alan MacDonald came in and there was a painting you didn't really like, would you tell him?

“No. If it was part of his evolution as an artist. I'm in with the artists for the long term, so if it's part of what they have to go through, I would air it, just to see what the public response is. I know the artists and I know where they're coming from…I've been working with them (for a long time) and they know what I'm doing. The thing is to get their first paintings.”

You're almost defining your clientele by what you do.

“Well, a lot of people are following me or following the gallery. They like the sort of art it shows.”

“Art can define who you are. A little bit less so now. Collectors are quite sophisticated. A lot of them have very individual tastes. There's a lot of younger buyers coming through.”

Paul Barnes: Three Heads

Who buys Paul Barnes?

“Eccentric, slightly exquisite people. Quite good collectors - there's a quality to people who understand his work. It's slightly more surprising, I guess. It would be difficult to pin down. It should be about love. People should fall in love with things.”

People who are like you are going to like the work you show.

“No. I wouldn't expect anybody to be like me. People who are following art. A lot of people, like yourself, obviously put time into following what artists are doing. I've got some clients that I notice at three o'clock in the morning are on the web site. In the book I mentioned a lady who would arrive early in the morning after driving from Stratford and her car would be parked outside. She would actually sleep in the car. People make huge sacrifices.”

BUSINESS/MARKET

You'll have a league table in terms of artists' sales?

“No, because one year somebody does something and the next moment somebody else does something, so it's all one-off, the artists are one-off, the clients are one-off, the work of art is a one-off. You can't think like a baked bean salesman.”

You said in the book that it isn't a normal business, it's ‘rarefied’. What does that mean?

“It means not many survive. You've got to be quite close to the top to do well. There's a lot of middle ground. You're working to an international client base with artists that hopefully retain their worth after they're gone. You're working with a continuity of what's been and what will be. It's a long term thing.”

Did you know any of the clientele when you started?

“No, they introduced themselves to me.”

There was almost a latent demand for what you were going to do?

“Yes, there was, you know, because, I was helping people.”

How have the circumstances changed?

“The art world has been changing. It's been difficult for people in the rest of the art world since the bank crash of 2008. A lot of people have struggled. The Fine Art Society lost their place in London. I guess that's the cost of rates, and they might have lost a few good clients as well. In 25 years, that's a generation, people die, you literally lose clients. You've got to keep re-inventing to keep the new ones coming in. There's nothing nicer than selling to someone in their early twenties. If you sell to somebody in their nineties, you go, ‘Oh Well!’ I started in the 1990's and the 90's were a ‘loads of money’ (Cockney accent) sort of time. There were overpaid bankers. A lot of galleries got fat. Come to the end of the 1990's, when things started to change, they were not in a lean state.”

What can galleries do to help artists sell?

“They have to ask themselves that question. Lots of things.”

“All of these big businesses just think it's the bottom line. It's the finance department running everything. If it was the finance department running everything here, the gallery would be doing exactly what your accountant says. It would be as dull as dishwater. What is the spark that makes art? You've got to free it. If you free it, people will come. ”

Do you think artists understand?

“No probably not. Well they might do, but they might not be good at it. It's complicated and expensive. I'm a trendsetter, and also increase the value of objects by putting them here. That's a mysterious thing. You don’t need to think like an accountant. I've put an awful lot into this. I've learned to do polarised photography; I was Art Logic's 14th client and now they've got 75 staff in many countries, so I've intentionally been ahead of the game. Big galleries make mistakes. I'm sure I've made mistakes. You make enemies along the line. Every time you don't show somebody a little fairy dies.”

If you were sitting in some God-like position surveying the Scottish art market what would you do?

“To encourage art? Well you have to get rid of the glass ceilings. People don't know what art is. It's about public collections and the establishment. Gerald (Laing) should have had a retrospective in the Modern Art Gallery in Edinburgh, but he hasn't. GOMA started off with a lot of good stuff that Julian Spalding did. It was quite political, and then when Labour got in, they didn't like Julian Spalding. They thought he was quite posh, and they actually got rid of all GOMA’s Sharmanka autonatons. They gave them back to Eduard Bersudsky. They turned the basement, which was originally called the Earth Gallery, into office space, and a couple of years ago they turned the main gallery into a place for Hopscotch. So people in the establishment should ask what is an artist? What's important? I guess I'm trying to increase the importance of these things.”

If you were running a public gallery, what would you do?

“They should buy the Alan MacDonald painting here and show it. They should have a proper contemporary collection. Inverness Museum and Art Gallery: they've been talking about re-doing that for ages and not got anywhere. The discussion was about what they'd have in the cafe. Should they have stovies or would that be too Scottish, when they should have been asking what sort of work a new gallery would support?”

The public galleries are not supporting the contemporary art scene in Scotland?

“Yes. We are seen as the enemy. I think it was when Damien Hirst did his shark in water, in formaldehyde, that was bought by a banker for seven million or something. That was a week's pay for him. So, he donated it to the Tate because he sobered up and thought this was absolute rubbish. The Tate looked at the figures and thought this is seven million, we can't say no. Then they thought what can we do with it? So the tastes started to be set by bankers with huge bonuses”.

Isn't the taste of Kilmorack set by very rich people?

“Not as rich as these bankers. There is a ceiling to what you can do with these artists because they need to be put into public collections and there has to be a way to ultimately get them into public collections, Christies and Sothebys – the international arena. That's where it would be nice for things to go. It's very difficult to do if public galleries are almost going against you. The Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh is very good and Chambers Street (NMS) as well.”

“There's this conceptual/non-conceptual division. Some places won't want to show non-conceptual stuff. But I think the craft of making something is part of the journey that makes it worthwhile. So Steve Dilworth making his objects, the craftmanship is part of investing it with magic. If an artist is coming up with a concept and dangling a few sheets, it's pretty light weight. But if somebody spends 25, 50 years exploring the same subject matter they get somewhere much more profound. Its a question of what's got weight.”

“And it's not an infinite thing. You can probably only let a small handful into that top class. It's always going to be elitist unfortunately.”

Gerald Laing : Galena X

Lifting the lid, the glass ceiling, creating a higher level would help everyone?

“If you look at the New Glasgow Boys in the 1980s they were selling internationally and that set a ‘thing’ and there was a kick-back that went all the way down, so that other people could do more.”

Are Scottish artists ambitious enough?

“Some are and some aren't. There's lots of talent and probably less ambition. But if the door is closing all the time, it's difficult to be ambitious.”

Do you think there's something around public taste?

“There's some terrible public sculpture that's gone down well. There's not really a mechanism for understanding public sculpture. Public sculpture is always controversial. People put it up to define the centre of Inverness. There is always something behind a piece of public sculpture. The giraffes in Edinburgh - that was to define the Omnicentre. But then you can have a very good client. Standard Life was very good to Gerald (Laing). They gave him a free hand to do some really good work. I guess the reason why the American market is so buoyant is because American collectors are happy to invest in interesting things…they've got bigger houses and possibly bigger budgets.”

Doesn't that just make art for rich people?

“I guess it is. If you want to buy a Van Gogh, you've got to be fairly rich, don't you? Look at this print (gestures to a striking picture). By the time it’s framed and the gallery takes its share that's £200 just on the frame. By definition it is for people who have disposable income. I can't magic that one away.”

Are all the changes that might help the general scene to do with the top end?

“Well they did have the Own Art scheme. The people who took it up here were the people who didn’t need it. The zero per cent interest never happens normally so they just said yes and that's something I don't even understand. I will facilitate things if I can, but people being affected by electricity prices are not my clients.”

If somebody said to me, ‘why buy art from a gallery?’, I would always say: ‘that’s where you can buy the best’.

“Yes, even from an artist's studio. Good artists: all the best stuff is going to the galleries. And the best artists are painting rather than trying to flog things.”

Tony Davidson does more than ‘flog things’. His enthusiasm and commitment has encouraged and emboldened many artists over the last twenty five years, and won Kilmorack Gallery a legion of followers who recognise the quality of his taste.  This Q&A demonstrated to me how much passion, energy, and engagement is still there, perhaps even more than when he started, and how important galleries and their owners are to the Scottish art world.

1. Kilmorack Gallery is south west of Beauly, on the Strath Glass road. Tony Davidson’s book, Confessions Of A Highland Art Dealer, can be purchased from the Gallery: https://www.kilmorackgallery.co.uk/. The Scotsman’s Roger Cox said: “an unexpected page turner.. partly this is because his elegant, unpretentious prose flows so effortlessly from one idea to the next, but mainly it's because the narrative that unfolds is so compelling – a tale of perpetual innovation and reinvention; of constantly cultivating existing relationships while also forming new ones. His writing on art and artists is excellent too: he's highly perceptive on the art and also creates some wonderful pen-portraits of the artists.”