fine-art
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Gayle Midnight turns a change of scenery into a change of medium
An Iceland sketchbook changed the way Gayle Midnight paints. Her San Francisco studio carries that habit of translation into original art, illustration and design.
ArtGallery and the art of buying without a raised eyebrow
A price tag, three photographs and a way to change your mind. Inside the online gallery that turns buying original art into a more ordinary transaction - and charges artists 35% to make it happen.
1stDibs Put the Flea Market Online. The Hard Part Was the Checkout.
Rare chairs, real money, and the business of getting strangers to trust each other. How 1stDibs turned a Paris shopping habit into a public marketplace - and why shipping quotes now matter as much as taste.
Masterworks
Masterworks is a New York fintech that lets everyday investors buy fractional shares in multimillion-dollar blue-chip paintings by artists such as Basquiat, Picasso, Warhol and Banksy. Founded in 2017 by serial entrepreneur Scott Lynn, the company buys individual artworks, registers each as a public offering with the SEC, and sells shares for as little as $20, then holds the work for several years before selling it and distributing proceeds. It reached unicorn status in 2021 after a $110M Series A and has grown to more than one million members.
TRLab
TRLab is an art-and-technology company that fuses Web3 tools with fine-art expertise to reinvent how people learn about, experience, and collect art. Co-founded in 2021 by Christie's non-executive Deputy Chairman Xin Li-Cohen and CEO Audrey Ou, the platform builds education-driven, interactive collecting journeys with major artists, estates and institutions - including the Calder Foundation, the Chris Burden Estate, Cai Guo-Qiang, Vogue and digital-art organization Rhizome. It has raised roughly $9.2M total, and more recently has begun extending its creative IP into lifestyle goods and immersive experiences.