A painter's website has several jobs at once. It has to show the work well enough that a collector wants to own a piece, give a gallery or curator the facts they need, and make it easy to buy or enquire about an original. Most artist websites do one of these well and neglect the others.
There is also a wider shift working in painters' favour. As AI image tools flood the internet with pictures made in seconds, one post on X argued that this makes a real photograph "more, not less, interesting". The same is true of an original painting. The website's job is to make the real object, its size, its surface and the person who made it, as present as possible.
This guide covers what an artist website for painters needs to show the work, sell originals and list exhibitions.
What collectors, galleries and curators look for
Different visitors want different things:
- Collectors want to see the work in detail, understand its size and medium, know whether it is available and find out how to buy.
- Galleries want to see a coherent body of work, your exhibition history and how to get in touch about representation or a show.
- Curators and writers want your CV, a statement, images they can request in high resolution and press contacts.
- People who saw your work somewhere want to find out who you are and whether they can see more.
A good artist website serves all of them without becoming cluttered.
Hang the work, do not list it
Many artist sites show paintings as a grid of small thumbnails. That is efficient for browsing, but it flattens the work. Painting is about scale, surface and colour, and a grid of squares loses all three.
Consider presenting work more the way a gallery would:
- One piece at a time, large on screen, with space around it
- A lightbox so visitors can see any piece full screen
- Details, such as close-ups of texture or brushwork, for important pieces
- Installation shots showing the work on a wall, which help people judge scale
Photograph your work well. Even, colour-accurate light, square to the canvas and at high resolution. Poor photography is the most common reason a painter's website underwhelms. Optimise image files so they load quickly on phones without losing quality.
Wall labels: title, medium, size, year, status
In a gallery, every piece has a label. Your website should do the same. For each work:
- Title
- Year
- Medium, such as oil on linen or acrylic on panel
- Dimensions, in centimetres and inches if you sell internationally
- Status: available, sold, on loan or in a collection
- Price or "price on request", if available
Collectors use these details to decide. A buyer who cannot find the size of a painting will rarely enquire.
Selling originals: enquiry or checkout
You have two broad options for selling originals from your site:
- Enquiry-based: visitors contact you about a piece, and you agree price, payment and delivery directly. This suits higher-priced originals and lets you have a conversation with each buyer.
- Checkout-based: visitors buy directly through an online shop. This suits prints, smaller works and fixed-price pieces.
Many painters combine the two: originals by enquiry, prints through a shop. Whichever you choose, explain shipping, framing, returns and how you package work. If you are represented by a gallery, check your agreement before selling directly.
Exhibitions and CV
Galleries and curators will look for your exhibition history. An exhibitions page should list:
- Current and upcoming shows, with dates, venue and location
- Past exhibitions, solo and group, by year
- Awards, residencies and collections, if any
Keep current shows at the top and update the page when a show closes. A downloadable or plain-text CV helps curators who need to copy details quickly.
Add a short press section if you have been written about: the publication, the date and a link. If you have a representative or gallery, name them and give their contact details for sales and press enquiries, so requests reach the right person.
A journal for process
A journal, with notes from the studio, work in progress, preparation for a show and the thinking behind a series, gives collectors a way to connect with you and your practice. It also gives your site regular new content.
Keep entries short. A few photographs and a paragraph is enough. Collectors often enjoy seeing a painting develop before it is finished, and may enquire before it is even complete.
Setting up Atrium
Atrium is a Framer portfolio template described on its page as "a portfolio you walk through like an exhibition". It mounts work in gilded museum frames under a starry night. A scroll-driven gallery cross-fades from piece to piece with museum wall labels, and a click-to-open lightbox shows every piece full screen.
It has six pages: Home, Works, About, Exhibitions, Journal and Contact, with Works and Journal collections on the CMS, a built-in how-to-edit guide page and WebP-optimised imagery. Everything is native and editable on the Framer canvas. It costs $49, and its page lists painters, illustrators and photographers, creative studios presenting a body of work, and artists who want work hung, not listed.
To set it up:
1. Photograph your work properly and add each piece to the Works collection with full label details.
2. Write your About page and statement.
3. Fill in Exhibitions with current, upcoming and past shows.
4. Add a few journal entries from the studio.
5. Update the Contact page with how collectors and galleries should reach you, and decide how buyers enquire about available pieces.
If you prefer something quieter and photography-led, Still is a free portfolio template for film photographers and visual artists, with a contact-sheet gallery and a photo archive on the CMS. See Framer templates for artists and painters for more.
An artist website will never replace standing in front of a painting. It can get a collector, gallery or curator close enough to want to.