Build an art gallery website for visitors and collectors
An art gallery website speaks to two people at once. Visitors want to know what's on now, what's next and when you're open. Collectors want to see the artists you represent and ask about a work without awkwardness. Exhibitions, artist pages and a discreet enquiry route cover both. Here's how to plan them with Anticode.
Now, next and past
The most important thing on a gallery homepage is the current exhibition: title, artist, dates, a strong installation image and a line on what it is. Below it, what's next, then a link to the archive. Visitors who arrive and see a show that closed months ago assume the gallery is closed too.
Each exhibition page should carry a short curatorial text, the list of works with titles, dates, media and dimensions, installation views, the opening or private view date, and any talks or events. Keep exhibitions in an exhibitions CMS collection with fields for title, artists, start and end dates, text and images. Each show gets its own page, the collection's overview page lists them all, and a status field (current, upcoming, past) that you change when a show closes keeps visitors oriented. An archive of past shows is also part of a gallery's credibility: it's the record of what you've put on.
Artist pages
- Represented artists
- Biography, selected works with full captions, exhibition history at the gallery, a CV or link to one, and press.
- Exhibited artists
- A lighter page linking to the shows they've been part of.
- Captions
- Title, year, medium, dimensions and edition where relevant. Collectors read these closely; be consistent.
- Images
- High-quality photographs with accurate colour, credited to the photographer, and descriptive alt text.
An artists collection keeps these consistent and lets the gallery team update biographies after each show. Upload your own photography; Anticode checks each file, stores it under your account, and the model sees the images when it lays out the pages. The design gate requires alt text on every image, which matters for visually impaired visitors and for a gallery's own accessibility commitments.
Enquiries about works
Whether to publish prices is a real choice. Some galleries list them to make buying approachable; others prefer "Price on request" to open a conversation. If you don't show prices, make enquiring easy and low-pressure:
- Put an "Enquire about this work" link next to each work's caption.
- Lead to a contact form (Anticode's takes name, email and a message) with a prompt to name the work they're interested in.
- Reply within a working day; collectors are often comparing several galleries.
Each enquiry is saved sealed at rest and emailed to the gallery. A connector can post it to a Slack channel the sales team watches, or add it to Airtable or HubSpot (for submissions with an email address) to keep a record of interest by artist. For works sold at fixed prices, such as editions and prints, a buy button can point to a checkout link from Stripe Payment Links or PayPal.
Visiting, access and private views
Practical information belongs on its own page and in the footer: opening days and hours (including closures during installation), admission, address, nearest transport, and access details such as step-free entry, lifts, seating, and whether large-print captions are available. For private views, a newsletter sign-up collects email addresses for invitations and can pass them to Mailchimp (with double opt-in) or Kit. See the exhibition website page for single-show sites.
Design that doesn't compete with the art
The website should frame the work, not upstage it. Swiss (Inter Tight) gives a strict grid and neutral type; Editorial (Geist) suits galleries with substantial writing; Brutalist (Archivo) suits project spaces with a raw identity. Use the Light theme for most work, or Dark for moving image and photography. Pick one restrained action colour, often black. Anticode's Atelier Nord template, an architecture studio on a Swiss grid, shows the kind of spare layout that suits images.
Limits for galleries
Anticode has no viewing room or collector area behind a login, since published sites have no visitor accounts. There is no cart, shipping or insurance handling for works, no ticketing or capacity limits for talks, and no translated pages: sites are English only. Forms take text only, so artists can't submit portfolios as files. Use specialist tools for online viewing rooms and art sales platforms, and link to them from the relevant pages.
Questions people ask
Can collectors buy artworks directly from the site?
Fixed-price editions can have a buy button linked to your payment provider's checkout. For original works, most galleries take enquiries and handle the sale personally.
How do we keep the exhibition programme up to date?
Keep exhibitions in a CMS collection with dates and update it in the dashboard. Each show gets its own page, and past shows stay in the collection as your archive.
Should an art gallery list prices online?
It depends on how you sell. Listing prices makes buying approachable for first-time collectors; price on request suits galleries that prefer a conversation. Either way, make enquiring easy.