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Locals, tourists paint bright future for art galleries
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
Like any tourist town, Charleston has its fudge and T-shirt shops, its take-home trinkets and its attractions.
While visitors are drawn to horse-drawn carriage rides through the historic district and boat rides to Fort Sumter, the city is also being discovered as a fine art mecca, and some visitors would sooner take home a $5,000 painting than a T-shirt.
The city’s growing number of art galleries, more than 10 times as many as there were in 1977, helped land Charleston on American Style magazine’s list of the Top 25 Art Destination Cities Among Small Cities in the country. The list, compiled from a reader poll taken in February, lists Charleston at No. 4 in the small city category, behind Santa Fe, N.M., Asheville, N.C. and Corning, N.Y.
Daniel Waldman, spokesman for American Style, said Charleston jumped 11 spots from its place on the magazine’s Top 25 list last year. Magazine readers participating in the poll are urged to make comments on what encouraged them to nominate a city, he said, and vibrancy and diversity of art were among the qualities they mentioned for Charleston.
“One reader noted that Charleston’s galleries are highly accessible and this person liked the fact that there are a high percentage of women artists,” Waldman said. “Another reader commented that Charleston has a real unique flair. Other comments related to excitement about the architecture.
“That’s what really draws tourists from outside the region. They don’t want to just see art, they want that whole art experience, which includes that sense of historic preservation and fine dining. All of those factors really play into how a city is received as an arts town.”
While the magazine’s survey is not scientific, local gallery owners predict that Charleston is poised to become the next Santa Fe.
Joe Sylvan, owner of the Sylvan Gallery on King Street and president of the Charleston Fine Art Dealers Association, moved to Charleston from Santa Fe.
“We looked around the country and we really thought Charleston would be the next major art market,” Sylvan said. “The tourists that come here are sophisticated. It’s not the bubble gum and T-shirt crowd. They’re already coming for antiques, and art work is the next step.”
Sylvan, who is originally from Columbia, said spring and fall are peak seasons in the Charleston art market, but it only takes one or two customers to affect business any week of the year. Visitors to Charleston have learned that they can see dozens of galleries on foot, because the great bulk of shops are located on the peninsula.
The city’s Office of Cultural Affairs tallies the number of art galleries in Charleston at 133, compared with 40 galleries in 1995 and nine in 1977.
Sylvan and other gallery owners welcome the competition.
“As a matter of fact, the more galleries you have, the better your market will be,” Sylvan said. “Then Charleston will become an art destination.”
Gallery owners must contend with a number of issues, not the least of which is the high rents associated with space in the downtown area.
Sylvan said affording a downtown location is challenging, but necessary.
“You want to be where the high-dollar people are, so you’ve got to be in the high-dollar rent district,” Sylvan said.
North Charleston is working to promote its arts community and luring artists to studio space in renovated warehouses on the old Navy base. City officials hope to open an arts and crafts co-op on Montague Avenue by fall, and recently opened an annual sculpture exhibition at Riverfront Park on the former base.
“The arts make good business,” said Marty Besancon, director of North Charleston’s cultural arts program. “It’s a quality of life issue for people who are wanting to move into the area. Next to education, it’s one of the things businesses ask about when moving into an area.”
The bright spot for gallery owners is that art sales have become a year-round business, supported not only by tourists but also by local residents.
Chuck Wolf, chairman of public relations and a past president and vice president of the French Quarter Gallery Association, moved to Charleston from Indianapolis, where he said many art galleries have closed.
“They just don’t have the support. They don’t have people who buy art,” Wolf said. “We’ve got a lot of tourism, but we’ve also got a base of well-heeled residents as well.”
John Doyle, a native Charleston artist who has been painting for 35 years, said newcomers relocating to Charleston are bringing new life to the city.
“About 50 percent of our sales are local, but these are not necessarily natives,” Doyle said. “These are new people who have moved here from New England, Ohio. Look at it this way: a person moves to Charleston and buys a $3 million property. That’s not even high anymore for downtown or Kiawah. A $20,000 piece (of art) is one of the less expensive items in the whole house. What’s good for real estate is good for art.”
Doyle paints large canvases and sells work ranging from $2,000 to $50,000. His average sale is about $9,000 and many sales are in the $25,000 range. He opened his Broad Street gallery nine years ago, when the neighborhood had few art galleries among its many law and real estate offices.
“It’s hard to believe, now,” Doyle said. “I saw how things were changing. I thought, real estate is improving, tourism is improving every year, people need paintings.”
The Charleston art market has become a lot more sophisticated and high-priced real estate has a lot to do with it, Wolf said.
“All this real estate is going up, and you don’t want to put prints in your house,” Wolf said. “If your million-dollar house is full of $50 prints, people will notice.”
A College of Charleston study commissioned in 2002 for the Charleston Fine Art Dealers Association and the French Quarter Gallery Association estimated fine art sales for the associations’ 39 galleries at $15.7 million annually with a total annual economic impact of $25 million.
Wolf said the numbers were conservative and feels that business for local galleries has grown at least 25% since then.
“That is not really big compared to hotels and restaurants,” Wolf said. “Our impact is less financial than it is cultural. If you took all of the art galleries out of Charleston, it wouldn’t be the same city. We’re really part of the cultural fabric of Charleston.”
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at kdayton@charlestonbusiness.com.
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