How to Commission a Work of Art: A Guide for Collectors and Institutions

A commission is not a purchase. It is a relationship: one that begins months or years before an object exists and continues long after it is installed. Commissioning directly from a living artist is among the most meaningful acts available to a collector or institution, and also among the most misunderstood. The artist gains resources, time, and trust. The commissioner gains something no secondary market can provide: a work made specifically for them, carrying a history of collaboration rather than transaction. Getting that relationship right requires preparation.

The first step is identifying why you want to commission at all. Clarity about intent determines every subsequent decision. An institution commissioning a permanent public work for a new building operates under entirely different constraints from a private collector commissioning a painting for a specific room. A foundation seeking to build an artist's career through a residency-plus-commission model has different obligations than a corporation commissioning a lobby sculpture for reputational purposes. These are not equivalent acts. The motivation shapes the brief, the budget, the timeline, and ultimately the work itself.

Before approaching an artist, research their existing practice at the level you would bring to acquiring a major secondary-market work. Study their output over the past decade. Identify the conditions under which their strongest work was made: scale, material, site, duration of production. If an artist's most significant sculptures took three years to fabricate and you are proposing a six-month timeline, you are not commissioning their best work. You are commissioning a rushed version of it. This is more common than commissioners acknowledge.

The approach to the artist matters as much as the proposal itself. Most serious artists receive commission inquiries through their representing gallery, not directly. Gagosian, Pace, David Zwirner, Hauser and Wirth, and virtually every major gallery has a commission desk or designated contacts who handle these conversations. Circumventing the gallery is generally inadvisable: it creates friction at the outset and the gallery is often the most efficient route to a productive initial conversation. For artists who work independently or with smaller galleries, a direct approach via studio contact is acceptable, though a warm introduction from a mutual contact remains preferable.

The commissioning brief should be written, not verbal, and should communicate the following: site or context for the work, timeline including key milestones, budget (fabrication, installation, artist fee, and contingency as separate line items), intended audience, any programmatic or institutional requirements, and the degree of creative latitude the artist is being offered. Vague briefs produce vague work. A brief that specifies dimensions, material constraints, and installation logistics while leaving the creative concept entirely open is more useful than one that specifies the subject matter without addressing the physical conditions the work must inhabit.

Budget conversations should be direct from the outset. An artist's time, materials, fabrication costs, studio overhead, and assistants all have real value. The industry norm is that the artist's fee, separate from fabrication, constitutes roughly 20 to 30 percent of the total commission budget for major institutional commissions, though this varies significantly with artist profile and scope of work. Underfunded commissions produce compromised work. If the budget is insufficient to realize the work the artist has proposed, say so early: a negotiated scope reduction is more productive than a commission that arrives damaged by financial stress.

The contract governs the relationship. Standard commissioning contracts address: ownership of the physical work, reproduction rights, the artist's right to document the work for their own portfolio, installation requirements, the commissioner's maintenance obligations, resale conditions (some artists include a droit de suite clause requiring notification or a percentage of resale proceeds on future sales), and what happens if either party is unable to fulfill their obligations. Organizations including the Public Art Fund and the Creative Time commission office have developed model contracts that are widely used in institutional contexts. Independent legal counsel familiar with art law is advisable for any commission above a modest threshold.

Installation is not the end of the process. It is the beginning of an ongoing relationship between the object and its site. Institutional commissioners should establish a maintenance protocol at the time of installation, with the artist or their studio's input, covering cleaning methods, acceptable repair practices, and conditions under which the artist should be consulted. A work improperly cleaned or repaired can be materially damaged and, in some jurisdictions, legally constitute a violation of the artist's moral rights, which persist independently of ownership. The High Line Art program and the Museum of Modern Art in New York both publish publicly available documentation of how they manage commissioned works over time.

For private collectors, the commissioning process carries additional dimensions. A work made for a specific room or site may have limited display options if circumstances change. Consider from the outset how the work would be transported, stored, or loaned if the primary site were no longer available. Discuss with the artist whether the work is truly site-specific or whether it could be adapted to another context, and get the answer in writing. These are not abstract concerns: collectors who have commissioned large-scale or site-specific works frequently encounter these questions when moving residences or transferring collections to foundations.

The most successful commissions are those in which the commissioner arrives with genuine resources, real flexibility, and the intellectual curiosity to let the process be unpredictable. The works that define institutional collections and private legacies are rarely those that conformed exactly to the original brief. They are the works that surprised everyone involved, including the artist.