The Disruptors- ARTtwo50 Co-Founders;Patrick Coughlin and Ethan Appleby

1.What have been your greatest challenges as your company matures?

Our greatest challenge as we grow is focus and prioritization - we have so many ideas, features we want to add to our products, and tools we want to deliver to our artists that it becomes difficult to prioritize.  It's a vicious cycle, because the deeper we get into this and the bigger we grow, the more we want to change and the faster we want to move - but we love it and it gets us up early and keeps us up late everyday.

2.What aspect of visual Art do you see as being undervalued and do you have plans to pursue shedding light on it?

We believe the mass-produced big box store prints are over-valued and original artwork from emerging, local artists is undervalued.  But, that imbalance is due to both a real and perceived imbalance in accessibility.  Too many people who want to Be Original and can afford original art for their space shy away from it because shopping for original art in galleries, art fairs, or the current online space can be intimidating, expensive, and time-intensive.  It's so much easier now for people to buy art at the same place they buy their couch or carpet.  We want to change that - and our whole messaging, business model, and marketing plans are directed at that behavior and hopefully making the world a more artful place.

3.What specific accomplishments had you achieved in your career that made your skill set unique to ART two 50's success?

All four members of the founding team have experience solving hard problems before coming together for ARTtwo50.  Ethan worked to bring innovation and design-thinking to the Middle East, Patrick worked in strategy and policy for countering violent extremism, Win was building cutting edge health/medical apps, and Brandon was developing curriculum for the fledgling academic field of User Experience / User Interface.  But, we all have personal connections to the art world. Ethan's step-dad and sister are artists, Patrick's mom was the art-lady at his local Kansas City school and works at the Nelson Art Museum, Brandon's wife is an artist and art teacher, and Win (we joke) has dated the most artists in the SF area.

We see the fact that none of us have come directly from the art world as critical to our ability to innovate and think outside-the-box in the art world, but our personal connections to art and artists keep us grounded in the needs of our most important users: our artists.

4.In making Art more accessible what do you see your role making the technology or distribution models that make delivery better, faster, smarter, more efficient, or less expensive?

All of the above!  We want to use technology and new business models to change the way people buy and sell art.  That means everything - the way people discover art, the way people price art, and the way people share art.

5.What things do you not like to do as a company?

Talk to lawyers - kidding, sort of. If it were up to us, we'd just keep growing and innovating, but the nuts and bolts of running and building a company can't be ignored if we're going to win. 

6. If we were sitting at your office a year from now celebrating what a great year it's been for you in your role, what did you achieve together as a corporate culture/brand?

We have three pieces of our culture.

Be Original - We strive to be original in our thinking and our products.

Be Approachable - We strive to be approachable to both our artists and our buyers.  We thrive on feedback and will always put our ARTISTS FIRST.

Be Balanced - We strive to be balanced in the way we work - we work hard and we play hard - we can be serious and we can have fun - this is how we keep our team happy and completely engaged in our mission everyday.

At the end of 2014, we will be able to look back on the year and say we lived these three values to their fullest.  And, in so doing, we helped thousands of artists sell artwork and brought original artwork to customers across the country who otherwise wouldn't have discovered it. 

7.If you could engage your customers right now what would you like to learn from them?And what would you like them to know about how you view them?

We engage our customers everyday! It's a big part of our process. We still speak with every buyer and actively solicit feedback from our artist community.  We try to learn what both our artists and buyers liked/disliked about their experience and then we try to make it better.  No matter what their experience with us, we hope both artists and buyers know that we listen, we care, and we move fast in making changes.

8.How do you determine whether ideas are worth pursuing at ART two 50?

Annnnnnnd, we've come full circle! Wow, didn't even plan that. This is the challenge we pointed to in #1.  It's hard, because we feel like there is so much we want to do. We brainstorm, we test, we debate, but most importantly, we listen - we listen to our artists and we listen to our buyers - and then we make decisions and get busy building!

 

We would like to thank ARTtwo50 for sharing their thoughts with us on the Art space.Continued success to Patrck,Ethan and the ARTtwo50 team. Twitter Pinterest Blog Website Facebook

 

Art Poster Auctions

Art poster auctions are very popular.  Owning great pieces of art has gotten easier.  A properly framed art poster can be as nice as owning an original painting and it is far less expensive.

I have found many different art styles in art poster auctions.  The most expensive art poster in the abstract style sold recently on eBay was a 1959 Picasso entitled Les Menines.  The poster sold for $560.00.

There was an original and authentic art poster auction recently in the art deco style that caught my eye.  The poster was from 1961 and was for Breakfast at Tiffany.  The poster sold for over three thousand dollars.

World’s Fair art poster auctions seem to do very well.  I saw an auction for the 1939 New York World’s Fair that sold for more than fifteen hundred dollars.  There was another art poster auction for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair that went for just under fifteen hundred dollars.

In the Asian art poster auction market, there seems to be some really odd things.  I found a poster that depicted McDonald’s hamburgers invading Japan.  The poster got fourteen bids from six different people and it closed at four hundred fifty five dollars.

In the category of Impressionist art poster auctions, I found one for the 2006 Jazz Festival in New Orleans that sold for over four hundred dollars.  It was done by a Cajun artist named James Michalopulos and featured Fats Domino.  The colors in the poster were brilliant.

I found that the category of Modern art posters seems to get the most auction listings.  There is one art poster that keeps being re-listed because it just doesn’t sell.  The poster is from the Elvis movie Love Me Tender.  Apparently the owner of this poster has determined that it is worth one thousand dollars and will not take less than that.  He hasn’t sold it yet, but I wish him luck.

There were another Modern art poster auctions that really did well as far as I could tell.  They were Greyhound travel posters.  There were a couple of art poster auctions that sold recently.  They were both created in the 1950’s and both of the posters sold for around three hundred dollars each.

After researching so many art poster auctions, I have come to the conclusion that my parents and grandparents should have collected every piece of advertising they ever came across.  They would be worth a small fortune by now!

The Sante Fe Railroad as a subject is prominently sold in art poster auctions.  These must be highly collectable because they generate a lot of bids.  If the art poster auction is for an old original poster of the Sante Fe Railroad, it will fetch upwards of four hundred dollars.

I found an art poster auction that was listed by the artist himself.  He made a black ink drawing for the Pearl Jam concert in Rome in 1996.  This original drawing was what the poster was made from.

Vintage or Antique posters as part of your collection

Vintage posters are always available at art auctions.  I have found all kinds of vintage poster art auctions lately.  I really liked a vintage poster I found that was from the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam.  The poster is rare because it is one of the only 500 of the 10,000 printed that is in French.

Another vintage poster I found in an art auction was from 1917.  It depicts French woman in war time performing various tasks.  The poster celebrates the contribution of French women in the workforce.  During war time, French women made up forty percent of the workforce.

I’m always a sucker for old vintage posters of rock bands.  I look for them in art auctions all the time.  I like ones that are autographed, like the one from The Who that I saw recently.  I felt like the starting bid was a little high and so I didn’t try to win it.

I have been leaning more and more lately toward French vintage posters.  I found a vintage poster for Orangina that was printed in 1970 at an art auction recently.  I thought that the art auction would only get to one thousand dollars, but I was wrong.  The vintage poster sold for twelve hundred dollars.

 I started looking for vintage posters in art auctions and found the perfect poster.  The one that I found featured race cars and he loves race cars.  The poster was from the 1965 Nurbergring Grosser Preis Von Deutschland and looked fantastic for being forty years old.

French advertisements seem to make the best vintage posters.  I like finding art auctions for posters advertising products like Lu Biscuits.

Vintage posters that relate to travel always get a lot of interest at an art auction.  I saw a lovely poster that was advertising the English Lake District in France.  The poster was produced in 1905.  I like viewing them, but I do not personally collect posters in this style.

I found a vintage poster at an art auction that advertised shoe polish.  This was a French poster that was made in the 1930’s.  I framed it and sent it to a client. 

They have used a variety of cycling related items to decorate their home.  My favorite piece is an old fashioned tricycle they keep in the formal living room.  I found a vintage poster in an art auction that depicted an advertisement for Celtic Cycles and they loved it when I gave it to them.

I found set of vintage posters of The Beatles that were made in 1967.  The posters were for sale an art auction I attended.  I have seen vintage posters designed by Richard Avedon before and I really liked his vision of The Beatles.  These vintage posters were well worth the two hundred fifty dollars each I paid for them.

The vintage poster that I have my eye on right now is up for sale at an art auction coming up.  It is an Andy Warhol advertisement for Chanel perfume.  I want to win this vintage poster and frame it and hang it on the wall of my daughter's bedroom as a gift.