- An art writer is not the same as a copywriter or a journalist.
- Ask to see published catalog texts, not just marketing samples.
- Start the conversation at least six to eight weeks before opening.
You have the work hung and the lighting set and the opening date confirmed, and now someone needs to write the exhibition text, whether that means the catalog essay, the wall labels, or maybe a press release as well. You need an art writer, and you need one fast.
This is the moment where many galleries, curators, and artists make expensive mistakes, because they hire the wrong person, end up with text that doesn't work, and then either live with it or scramble to fix it days before the opening. I've been on both sides of this, as the writer being hired and as the editor cleaning up after someone else, and over the years I've learned a fair amount about how to get it right.
Art Writer, Copywriter, Journalist: They Are Not the Same
The first mistake is treating "writer" as a single category, when a copywriter who writes brilliant ad campaigns may have no idea how to contextualize a painting within post-war abstraction, and a journalist who covers the art world may write sharp, engaging prose while struggling with the formal tone a catalog demands. An academic art historian, meanwhile, may produce rigorous scholarship that puts your visitors to sleep.
What you actually need depends on what you're producing.
For a gallery catalog text, you need someone with art historical training who can also write for a non-academic audience, while for auction catalog entries you need someone who understands both connoisseurship and commercial writing, and for wall labels and press materials you need clarity and precision above all. Few writers do all of these well, so know which one you actually need before you start looking.
What to Look for in a Portfolio
Published catalog texts. Not blog posts about art, and not reviews, but actual catalog essays written for galleries, museums, or auction houses, because that is the single best indicator that a writer understands the form. Ask for two or three examples and read them carefully, paying attention to whether they make you want to see the artwork and whether they balance scholarship with readability. If the writing feels like it was made to impress other writers rather than to serve the art, keep looking.
Range of artists and periods. A writer who has only ever written about emerging contemporary art may struggle with Old Masters, and vice versa, so if your exhibition crosses periods or media you need someone comfortable moving between different art historical vocabularies.
Familiarity with attribution language. If the exhibition involves historical works, your writer needs to understand the precise terminology, the difference between "attributed to," "studio of," "circle of," and "manner of," because using the wrong term is not just sloppy and can be legally and commercially dangerous.
The Conversation Before the Contract
Before you hire anyone, have a real conversation, not an email exchange but a call or a meeting, because there are three things you need to know about the person before you sign anything.
Do they ask questions about the art? A good art writer will want to know about the artist's practice, the curatorial concept, the intended audience, and the wider context of the exhibition, whereas a writer who only asks about deadlines and word counts is approaching the job as production rather than as something creative.
Do they push back? The best writers will tell you when your curatorial statement is unclear, when the press release buries the lead, and when the catalog structure doesn't serve the work, so if a writer agrees with everything you say in the first meeting, they will probably produce text that is correct but lifeless, and what you want instead is someone with real opinions.
Have they seen art in person recently? This sounds like a strange thing to ask, but it is not, because writing about art requires a relationship with looking, and a writer who spends time in galleries and museums writes differently from one who works only from images and press kits. You can feel the difference in the text.
Red Flags
"I can write about anything." Maybe so, but art writing is a specialization, and a generalist who claims to cover all topics equally well usually covers none of them deeply. Specialists charge more, and they are worth it.
No art history background. A good art writer does not need a PhD, but they do need to have studied art history formally or spent enough years in the field to have equivalent knowledge, because without it the writing will lack the contextual depth that separates professional exhibition text from enthusiastic description.
They send a quote without seeing the work. A writer who quotes a fixed price before understanding the scope of the project is either overcharging or underdelivering, since the fee should reflect the complexity of the work, meaning how many artists are involved, what period, how much research is needed, and how many deliverables there are. A serious writer will ask all of these questions before naming a number.
Timing and What It Costs You
The biggest mistake galleries make is hiring the writer last, treating the text as something that can be bolted on a week before the opening, which it cannot, because good exhibition writing requires time to research, time to look at the work (ideally in person), time to draft, and time to revise. For a catalog essay, four to six weeks is reasonable, and for wall labels and shorter texts, two to three weeks will usually do.
Rush jobs cost more and produce worse results, so if you're planning an exhibition, bring the writer in early, because the best exhibition texts are written by people who were part of the process rather than people who arrived at the end of it.
If you have an exhibition coming up and need writing that does the work justice, see how I work with galleries, since I've written for galleries across Europe and I'm always interested in new projects.