Describe the work and the agent builds an archive by series, artwork pages that carry the full caption, a shop for prints and originals plus a board for commission requests — steered in a live preview.
Build a portfolio website for a painter who also sells prints. Store artworks with title, series, year, medium, dimensions and availability (Available, Reserved, Sold, Not for sale, In a private collection). The work page filters by series, medium and year, and sold pieces stay in the archive. Give each series its own page with a short statement. Sell limited edition prints with each paper size as a variant holding its own stock and framing priced on top, alongside a few originals. Add an exhibitions page that splits upcoming from past shows by year, and a commission form asking for type, size, budget band and deadline.
Painters, illustrators and photographers tend to end up with a site that froze on the day it launched: a grid of untitled images, a series the studio moved on from two years ago and a contact address that collects commission requests with none of the details you need to quote. Build the site in Netiva and artworks, series, exhibitions and requests become linked records instead. New work is entered once, then the archive, its series page and the CV show it, and the artwork page links to the piece in the shop.
Every artwork belongs to a series, so one record feeds the archive and its series page. It also links to the matching piece in the shop, and the caption line under each image is assembled from medium, dimensions and year.
Sell open and limited edition prints next to originals that exist once and sell once. Each paper size is a variant with its own SKU, price and stock, and framing is priced as an option on top of it.
One show record does two jobs: it announces the opening while the dates are still ahead, then drops into the past shows list grouped by year, the section galleries ask for first on a CV.
The request form asks for the kind of piece, the size, a budget band, the date it’s needed and a reference photo, and what comes back is a record on a board rather than a one-line email.
Netiva keeps your records in built-in collections. Here’s a starting structure — the agent adapts it to your prompt, and you can change it any time.
The bodies of work you group pieces into, each with its own statement.
One record per piece, with the caption details collectors and curators ask for.
Shows, fairs and residencies, which become the exhibitions section of your CV.
What visitors ask you to make, with enough detail to quote or decline.
Required field. Types are Netiva collection field types.
A typical first version. Ask the agent for more, or annotate the preview to change any of them.
The whole archive, filtered by series, medium, year and availability, with the caption under each image and a page per series that opens with your statement.
PublicOne piece at full size with its medium, dimensions, year and availability, and a button to buy the print or ask about the original.
PublicThe shop: editions by paper size with framing priced on top, originals with a stock of one, and what is left of each edition.
PublicShows still to come at the top, then past shows grouped by year with venue, city and kind for each one.
PublicThe form: kind of piece, size, budget band, date it is needed and a reference photo, with your current lead time at the top.
PublicRequests by status and by the date they are needed, with the budget band and reference photo on each card.
Your teamTell Netiva what the work is, how you group it and whether you sell prints, originals or both. The agent drafts collections for series, artworks, exhibitions and commission requests.
Enter pieces in the collection grid, or ask the collection assistant to draft rows from an inventory list, then upload images and set medium, dimensions and availability.
Look at an artwork and a series page in the live preview. Annotate the caption, the image size or the spacing of a series page and the agent changes it while you watch.
Add paper sizes as variants with framing priced on top, publish to your own domain in one click and keep working — every later change is checkpointed, so an edit you regret rolls back.
| Criterion | With Netiva | Traditional build |
|---|---|---|
| Adding new work | Add one artwork record and both the archive and its series page show it, linked to the print in the shop | Send files to a web designer and wait for the gallery page to be rebuilt |
| Edition numbers and sold work | Stock per paper size, so the last print of an edition sells out on the page | A spreadsheet of print numbers the website never reflects |
| Getting started | Describe what you need in chat and watch it take shape in a live preview | Hire developers, or stitch together templates, plugins and a hosting plan |
| Content and data | Built-in collections with nine field types, bound straight to your pages | Set up and connect a separate database or CMS |
| Making changes | Ask the agent; every change is checkpointed and reversible | File a ticket, wait for a sprint, redeploy |
| Hosting and domain | Global hosting and automatic SSL; connect a custom domain from the Starter plan | Buy hosting, then install and renew SSL certificates yourself |
| Code ownership | Clean production code you own and can export | Locked into a template, plugin or agency setup |
Canvases sold through a gallery stay in the archive marked as in a private collection, so a curator can follow a series from the first painting to the last while the shop lists only what is still available.
Requests arrive with the kind of piece, a budget band and a date, so a wedding portrait due in six weeks is easy to tell apart from a book cover that can wait until spring, and the rest go on a waitlist.
Each image is sold in three paper sizes, each its own edition of 30, framed or rolled at checkout, so the count falls as prints leave the studio and a size reads sold out when its last print goes.
Netiva doesn’t shoot or retouch artwork, and it won’t bring an old site across for you. Enter pieces in the collection grid or ask the collection assistant to draft rows from an inventory list, then check medium, dimensions and availability yourself before the pages go live.
The US Copyright Office puts it plainly: owning a copyright is distinct from owning the object the work sits in, and transferring the object doesn’t necessarily transfer the copyright. Say on the shop page what a buyer is getting, and keep your reproduction terms in writing.
When a gallery is holding a piece, keep its availability current so the shop can’t sell it twice. Splits, exclusivity and consignment terms stay between you and the gallery; the site only records where each work is and whether it can be bought.
Images need a text alternative that serves the same purpose, which for an artwork usually means describing what is in the picture rather than repeating the title. It is what a screen reader says out loud and what a search engine has to work from.
Yes. Availability is a field on the artwork, with the values you choose — available, reserved, sold, not for sale or in a private collection. The archive keeps everything, so a curator can follow a series from start to finish, while the shop lists only what is still for sale. Visitors who want to buy can filter the archive down to available pieces.
Each image is a product and every paper size is a variant with its own SKU, price and stock, so the number left falls as prints sell and the size reads sold out when an edition closes. Framing is priced as an option on top of the size rather than stock of its own. Numbering follows the usual convention: the eighth print of an edition of 30 is written 8/30, and artist’s proofs marked AP are normally held back outside that numbered run.
Yes. The form collects the kind of piece, the size, a budget band, the date it is needed and a reference photo, saves it as a record and sends the person a confirmation. Requests sit on a board you sign into, filtered by status, so you can quote the ones that fit your year and waitlist the rest instead of losing them in an inbox.
Yes. Each show is a record with venue, city, kind — solo, group, art fair or residency — and its opening and closing dates. Shows that have not closed appear as upcoming; the rest fall into a past list grouped by year, which is the form most galleries ask for. Ask the agent for the other CV sections the same way — education, awards, residencies, press and public collections.
Yes. Ask the agent for a viewing room: a page behind a sign-in where a gallery, curator or collector sees only the pieces you picked, with the prices and dimensions you would rather keep off the public archive. Each visitor signs in with their own account and sees the selection made for them, and you can take it down after the fair.
Start on the free plan and build the whole site in the live preview at no cost. Connecting your own domain needs the Starter plan or higher, and PayPal alongside Stripe comes in from Pro. Higher plans add capacity and features such as advanced analytics. Check what each plan includes on Netiva’s pricing page before you publish.
Drafted with AI assistance from Netiva’s product pages and reviewed by the Netiva team. Example data models, screens and prompts are illustrative starting points, not customer projects.
Describe it in a sentence and watch Netiva’s agent build it. Free to start — no credit card required.