I’d caution you to tread lightly and make sure you have a personal indemnity clause in your contract with the gallery so that if an image of some painter ends up in your app without permission, or that exceeds conditions of usage, the artist can’t come after you and sue you for developing the app.

Regarding the app characteristics, it depends on the gallery, I’m sorry to say. Personally, I seek out particular art galleries based on either the genre or special collections, as I collect art by specific artist or maybe specific genre. Ask the gallery to describe their gallery in one sentence and that will be the feature(s) you build the app around.

I guess I would want artist bios, news of new acquisitions, traveling auctions, links to web sites if you could only legally use thumbnails in your app. Everything changes so fast in the world of art, I can’t imagine how you would keep a mobile/ipad app fresh.

I buy Native American Fine Art prints. I live in the US but the gallery is in Vancouver BC. They know which artists we like. They email comps of new art, or we contact them about a specific print and pay a finders fee for them to locate the work. Same with a gallery in San Francisco only to them we are small potatoes so they only send us quarterly bulletins. However, I doubt I could even afford a Lichtenstein serigraph now that he’s gone, much less an original painting!

Either the database would have to be huge and accessible locally without a connection, or contain rare information about artists that is not widely known. Even iPhone garden apps can’t resolve the data management effectively. The few that remain have had to resort to user customization because of the vast and incredibly labor intensive database management necessary. Most of us have abandoned mobile apps that force us to access data through a web connection because it becomes a slog to find anything. But, if I’m create my own database because the built-in database is inadequate and/or infrequently updated, then what do I need an app for?

Consider not the first use of your app, but the 10th or 20th use. If there’s nothing new after a few uses, then what’s the point of the app. Building an iPad-friendly version of the gallery’s web site would seem more cost effective.

And I could be an idiot from another planet! Just giving you my thoughts based on being an art and collectibles consumer, a web designer/front-end developer with an iPhone, a MacBook Pro and jonesing for an iPad.

So disregard if I am delusional! Don’t mean to rain on your parade, but also want you to consider the legal stranglehold the updated IP (intellectual properties) laws have put us all in.

Heck, it seems that just about the only subject left to use in art without permission is the sky. As far as I know, God hasn’t required a property release or conditions-of-use contract for painting a picture of it. Everything else on the planet is owned by somebody, (including NASA space images above the sky which are no longer in the free-use public domain). And that SOMEBODY gets bent out of shape pretty easily if they don’t get their piece of the pie if whatever they own appears in your work!

Tread lightly and protect yourself from others that may have their hand in your pocket if they can’t have their hand in someone else’s.
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I also like art that seems to expand from the cavas, so it doesn’t just stop at the edges where the artist ran out of room, I like to be able to imagine further. So I like it to seem to tell a story.

I normally prefer modern art or art that’s quite abstract and rebellious almost.
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be you. dress nice use assories.

if your a guy a nice shirt and nice slacks works wonders. ensure your well shaven and clean.
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Here is what I can tell you from what my1,200 sqft gallery cost:

Rent $2,900 per month.

Utilities: $600 per month

Staff: $2,500 per month

Advertising $1,500 per month.

Misc: book keeping, taxes, etc… $200 per month

That works out to $7,700 per month or $90,000 per year.

That means if you want to make a living at it, you are going to need to sell close to $150,000 worth of art each year.
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A location in a bad area in a small town might cost $500 a month, a shop in a nice area in a larger town might cost over $5000 a month. Then you have operating expenses, which will again vary greatly. You have business license, accountant fees, insurance fees, and how are you planning on working with any displaying artists? How much will you take from any sells? Are you going to charge for wall space? I hope you don’t think your Father "doing photography" is going to finance and support this whole thing.

This question is simply another variation of the never ending "what do I name my photography business" questions seen on here almost hourly by totally clueless people as pertains to business knowledge. An art gallery is a business much like any other. I suggest you get in some business courses / classes if this is something you want to pursue in the future.

steve
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