Art Competition Scams

A True Story

This story was related to me by Joye Peters, then manager of San Francisco Women Artists Gallery, and Georgette Owens, President of the Alliance of Women Artists (Greenbrae, CA), and confirmed by newspaper reports. This particular scam occurred in 1993, but there are numerous badly managed exhibitions and deliberate scams every year. In reading this story you may recognize some of your own experiences, or it may confirm suspicians you have had about other shows.

Bill, who lived in Oklahoma, received a professional-looking letter of invitation to enter his work in State of the Art ‘93, an art competition scheduled to open Memorial Day Weekend in Boston. He sent 2 slides and a $25 entry fee to the competition organizer, Matthew Brooks, who described himself as a Trustee of the New England Fine Arts Institute.

Bill subsequently received a letter of acceptance with details about the show: [paraphrased] “Congratulations! You are one of 300 artists selected from 6,000 entries. In the unlikely event that two of your pieces are accepted, you are invited to attend the opening reception. . . [Details followed, describing discount hotel accommodations and a complimentary shuttle to the show] . . .You must enclose a $49 handling agent’s fee. Hoping to see you. . .” The letter enclosed two free passes to get into the show. It also included an impressive list of jurors who, we since discovered, Brooks neglected to contact.

Both of Bill’s pieces were accepted. Very pleased, he sent in the $49 fee, shipped his pieces off to the show (at considerable expense), and flew to Boston on Thursday, May 27. When his friend Joye met him in Boston on Friday they discovered that the show was actually out in the suburbs, in Woburn, Massachusetts. So they took a bus to a pick-up area where they would wait for the Day’s Inn Hotel shuttle. There were at least six artists already waiting. While talking, they discovered that each of them had received the same letters and each had had two pieces accepted into the show, which seemed odd, since the phrasing of the acceptance letter implied that only a small percentage of artists got two pieces in the show. The artists had come from all over the country, one of them from Arizona, another from New Mexico, some from California.

Having arrived at the hotel, they waited for another, complimentary shuttle to the opening reception. When it finally arrived, they were surprised to discover that it was a yellow school bus, and that they had to pay a $3 fare to the show, plus $1 for the return trip. This seemed very unprofessional. They began to feel uneasy about the whole situation.

The show was at the Northeast Trade Center, a mall in Woburn, Massachusetts. Bill and Joye were surprised to discover that the actual exhibition was set up in large tents in the mall parking lot, with temporary half-wall partitions set up inside. Once inside Bill and Joye were dismayed to see hundreds of pieces of work, not hung properly, but propped up against the partitions. There was work as far as the eye could see, leaning precariously, with numbered signs hanging from the ceiling above the aisles. The food offered at the reception consisted only of hot dogs, for a price, and admission to the show was $8.

All the visitors seemed to be artists, not patrons. Perhaps any potential patrons were dissuaded by the entry fee. But artists were everywhere, trying to find their work. Bill began to look for his pieces, but he and Joye soon discovered that there was no order to the display, neither numerical, nor alphabetical. In fact, there was no master list available. There was, however, a $10 catalogue, printed in black and white. It was not in alphabetical order and did not correspond to the show.

After a lengthy search, Bill still could not locate his pieces and they left in discouragement. On the next day, Saturday, when Bill and Joye returned to the show, an artist suggested he search the mall basement for his work. They were shocked to discover hundreds of crated pieces piled everywhere on top of each other; many of the crates had never been opened. Bill eventually found his pieces among them. Very upset, he and Joye tried to locate Brooks to demand an explanation. They found Brooks surrounded by a crowd of extremely angry artists; there was some pushing and shoving and, according to Joye, “it seemed like the crowd might become violent.”

Artists began removing their work and leaving. But as they left, Brooks began to uncrate more work in the basement.

Bill made arrangements with Federal Express to collect his work at the show and ship it home. Since it was Memorial Day weekend, FedEx would not pick up the work until Tuesday, and Bill could only hope for the best, since he was not able to extend his stay. At the end of the day, he and Joye met with other artists in their hotel. All of them were upset. Groups of artists in other hotels were also meeting and discussing their options. Some wanted to sue Matthew Brooks. Some wanted to go home and put it all behind them. They heard that the Massachusetts Attorney General had responded to artists’ complaints by going to the exhibition site. His office obtained a preliminary five-point injunction against Brooks, freezing his funds and forcing him to return all the work.

Brooks’ financial gain from the enterprise would amount to a minimum of $266,400, the result of multiplying the number of artists involved by the entry and ‘handling’ fees. However, the escrow account set up for the show contained only $15,000 and Brooks claimed not to know where the rest of the money went. He had accepted entries from 3,600 artists throughout the United States and Europe, as opposed to the ‘300 artists’ as stated in his letter. Much of the work was never shown, and some was damaged or destroyed. When last heard from, surrounded by angry artists and with two police officers to protect him, Brooks’ explanation of the fiasco was that the show “simply got out of hand.” The Board of Trustees of the New England Fine Arts Institute has not come forward with an explanation and in fact that institution’s existence has not been verified. At the time, Brooks was 31 years old, with 2 years of art school behind him, and managed a small gallery in Massachusetts.

Some Advice

Artists should be cautious about responding to competitions by mail. Our first suggestion is that one should never, ever, send money or slides to a post office box. There is no way to know who the recipient is, or to trace the money once it leaves the box. Some advertised competitions simply throw out the slides and flee with the money. This exact scenario occurred in San Francisco in 1997 and was reported on the evening news.
     Never send slides or money to a gallery or competition if they do not list a phone number. You can be sure that a reputable business will have a phone. Always write, or call, to request a prospectus or other information about the competition before responding. The information should list the specific show dates, the location of the show, describe the purpose of the show, explain insurance coverage during the show, and list the juror/s names, qualifications and professional affiliations. Most important, you must suspect any competition that requires a large 'entry fee', or subsequest hanging or 'processing' fees. Don’t get burned.

-- copyright Li Gardiner