It costs a lot of money to create a frame! You need skilled people to make one, get the proper archival glass to protect whatever you're displaying. There's a lot of work and field best practices that goes into this.
replyIt doesn't really have to cost that much. You're mostly paying real estate and a professional waiting for business. Framing material, UV glass, and acid free paper are quite cheap. Anti-glare Tru Vue museum glass costs maybe a couple hundred dollars for a medium sized work, but a lot of museums don't even use it because art framers mark it up like crazy.
reply>You're mostly paying real estate and a professional waiting for business.
replyAre these optional? If not, I don't see how this makes sense:
>It doesn't really have to cost that much.
Gallerists always act like having a professional framer is given, but maybe their typical clientele are rich enough to just treat that as a mandatory tax. I framed my art with a diy LevelFrames kit for 10x cheaper which took less than an hour. The frame itself isn't particularly good quality, so for now, boutique framers have a strictly superior product, but this advantage could easily be commoditized away.
replyAnd then you visit nearly any museum in Europe, and walls are absolutely covered in paintings with almost none of the wall itself visible and most of the paintings not even behind any sort of glass. It's kind of funny.
replyThe STOP OIL NOW people are changing that with their paint.
reply(a) Just Stop Oil has disbanded.
reply(b) They only pulled that stunt on art that was already behind suitably-protective covers. (Whether the stunt is effective or not, they weren't putting artwork at risk: just temporarily disrupting the operation of galleries, and getting themselves arrested.)
(c) This is completely off-topic.
Archival preservation materials, anti-reflective glass, and a person who knows what they heck they're doing around artifacts is expensive. Just getting the thing onsite can cost thousands.
replyThis is just a copy/paste from chatgtp about cost to frame a 36" x 36" piece of artwork in a world class museum.
reply Typical line-item cost ranges (USD) for a 36" × 36" piece
Conservation assessment / condition report: $150 – $1,200
Conservation treatment (if needed): $200 – $3,000+
Museum-grade framing (materials + custom frame + museum glazing): $800 – $4,000
Custom crate: $300 – $1,500
Fine-art transport (local/domestic): $200 – $2,000 (international: $1,500 – $10,000+)
Insurance while in transit/installation: depends on declared value (e.g., 0.2%–2% of value for a short transit, but many institutions roll it into exhibition insurance) — $50 – thousands
Installation labor / mountmaker / registrar time: $200 – $1,500
Misc (hardware, climate packs, small repairs, documentation): $50 – $600
Scenario totals (realistic museum contexts)
Modest / in-house, low-value work (museum does framing in-house or uses a local framer; local transport; no major conservation):
Estimated total: $1,500 – $4,000.
Typical world-class museum standard (professional conservation framing, custom crate, fine-art courier, conservator sign-off, installation by mountmaker/registrar):
Estimated total: $4,000 – $12,000.
High-end / high-value or international loan (specialist conservator treatment, museum-grade anti-reflective glass, climate-controlled international shipping, high insurance, specialized rigging):
Estimated total: $12,000 – $50,000+ (could rise much higher for multimillion-dollar works because insurance & security scale with value).
deleted
reply