How to Label Artwork for an Exhibition

Walk through any group show during install week and you will see the same scene: the work is hung, the lighting is set, and someone is standing at a laser printer at 11 pm arguing about what goes on the labels. The label seems like the smallest part of an exhibition, and it is also the part every single visitor reads, compares against the price list, and photographs when they want to remember a piece.

This guide covers the practical side of labeling artwork: what information goes on the label, what size and material work in a real gallery space, and how to format titles so your paperwork stays consistent. If you are looking for the other half of the job, the short interpretive text that tells visitors what to notice, that craft lives in its own guide to writing exhibition wall labels.

What a Label Is (and What It Isn't)

An artwork label is an identification card, not an essay. Its job is to answer four quiet questions in two seconds: who made this, what is it called, what is it made of, and how big is it. Everything interpretive, the artist's intention, the context, the story, belongs either in the extended wall text or in the catalog, where a reader has chosen to spend time.

Keeping that boundary clean helps both sides. The label stays scannable, and the interpretive text stops carrying data it was never meant to carry.

The Tombstone Format: What Goes on the Label

The standard identification block is called the tombstone, and its order barely changes across galleries and museums: artist name on the first line, then the title with the year, then medium and support, then dimensions. Commercial shows usually add a price or a courtesy line ("Courtesy of the artist"), editioned works add the edition number, and larger inventories add a discreet catalog number that ties the label back to your records.

Dimensions follow the convention height by width, adding depth for objects, in centimeters or inches depending on where you show, and it costs nothing to give both. The one rule that matters more than any single field is consistency: every label in the room should carry the same fields, in the same order, in the same type.

Size, Placement, and Materials

Most gallery labels sit between roughly 5x9 cm and 10x15 cm, large enough to hold the tombstone at a readable size and small enough not to compete with the work. Readable in practice means type around 16 to 24 points for the body, printed dark on a light matte card, because glossy stock catches the spotlights and turns your label into a small mirror.

Placement is a matter of consistency more than of rule. Labels are commonly hung beside the work on the same side throughout the room, close enough to belong to the piece but with a hand's width of clear wall between them, and centered around the same comfortable eye level used for hanging, roughly 145 to 155 cm from the floor. A visitor who finds the first label should never have to hunt for the second one.

How to Write Titles on a Label

Titles are where labels quietly fall apart, because the same work ends up spelled three different ways across the label, the price list, and the artist's website. The convention is simple: the title is set in italics, followed by the year, and it keeps its original language with a translation in parentheses if your audience needs one.

A work without a title is listed as Untitled, and if the artist has many untitled pieces, a series name or a number in parentheses keeps them apart, like Untitled (Harbor III). Whatever you choose, freeze the exact spelling once and reuse it everywhere, from the label to the press kit to the certificate. Consistent titles are not pedantry; they are what lets a buyer, a journalist, and a future researcher agree they are talking about the same work.

Common Mistakes

Inconsistency between labels. One label with prices and one without, two different date formats, a stray font. Visitors may not name the problem, but they feel that the room was assembled carelessly, and that feeling transfers to the art.

Type nobody can read. A beautiful 10-point label is a decoration, not information. If a visitor has to lean in to read the artist's name, the label has failed at its only job.

Mismatched paperwork. The label says one title, the price list another, the certificate a third. When a sale happens, that mismatch becomes a real problem, because the documents that should confirm each other now disagree.

Letting the label do the wall text's job. Three sentences of interpretation crammed under the tombstone serve nobody. If the work needs context, give it a proper extended label and keep the identification card clean.

If you are preparing an exhibition and want the labels, the wall text, and the catalog to speak with one voice, see how I work with galleries. The label is small, but it is the most-read text in the room.