One brush stroke out of a few thousand cost me the sale of a painting. In the gallery, under their lighting, one brush stroke caught the light just so revealing itself to all who looked at that painting. In the studio I could not see it but in the gallery it spoiled the smooth look of the sky.
You never know what little thing can put a perspective buyer off. Horses in a field stop a collector because the husband is afraid horses, they loved the painting - till I informed them the “cows” were really horses. A salesperson in a gallery would not even show one of my figurative pieces because the model had one foot on the floor, the other up on the sofa she was sitting on. Even though she had a full length skirt on the sales lady said ladies don't sit like that. I had to send it to another gallery. A friend exhibited a tasteful nude and lost several of his collectors, one of whom put all her paintings of his on sale for half the price she paid for them. People are funny about art.
Letters to the editors of art magazine are quite interesting at times. A western collector was disappointed because the magazine he subscribed to published a picture of a painting in which cattle were grazing on the wrong side of hill. Another letter from an art teacher in LA who was stopping her subscription to an artist magazine because the portrait they put on their cover was just part of a painting which was a nude by Nelson Shanks. This teacher was objecting, not because they only showed the head from this nude, but because to show any part of this painting was wrong. She objected to all nudes.
Great art can be sent to an artists closet for a number of reasons. Once a collector I knew had too many paintings. In her closet were two by Fechin.
