Published October 19, 2026
The availability list is the most ordinary document a gallery sends, and one of the most important. It is often the first thing a collector, an advisor or a museum curator receives after an inquiry, and it is read quickly, on a phone, between meetings. A clear artwork availability list makes the gallery look organized and makes decisions easy. A messy one, with inconsistent dimensions, missing prices or a work that sold last week, quietly undermines trust. This guide covers how to format availability lists and single work offers so collectors read them, believe them and reply.
Try it on one of your works
Sample artist
Harbour Light IV, 2024
Oil on canvas
$18,500
No card required. Your inventory stays yours, export it as CSV any time.
The demo creates one artwork record per visitor per day. Create an account to keep adding works.
views 0
Galleries often use the terms interchangeably, but they do different jobs and should be formatted differently.
An availability list presents several works, usually by one artist or from one exhibition, in a compact format that allows comparison. It answers the question "what is available right now". An offer PDF presents one work, or a very small group, in more depth. It answers the question "should I buy this one".
Keeping them distinct helps the collector. A list that tries to be a catalog becomes too long to scan, and an offer that tries to be a list loses the focus that makes a single work persuasive.
Some galleries also send a third format, a short checklist of an exhibition with thumbnails and prices, handed out at the front desk or attached to a press release. It follows the same rules as an availability list: the same tombstone order, the same price conventions and a date of issue. Whatever the format, the collector should be able to tell at a glance what the document is, when it was produced and who to contact.
The tombstone line is the core of every listing, and consistency matters more than any particular convention. Choose one order and use it for every work in every document.
Dimensions cause the most confusion. Always give both systems for international collectors, always in the same order, and always state whether the measurements include the frame. A collector who plans a wall around the wrong dimension will not forget it.
Titles deserve the same care. Use the exact title the artist gave, including capitalization and punctuation, and keep series titles consistent. If a work is untitled, follow the artist's convention, which often includes a parenthetical subtitle or a number. A list where the same work appears under two slightly different titles in two documents makes a collector wonder which one is correct, and an institution's registrar will ask.
Most availability lists are opened on a phone first. That changes how images should be chosen and placed.
Compress images so the PDF opens quickly, but not so much that color shifts or edges blur. A file that takes a long time to download on a mobile connection often does not get opened at all.
Order the works on a list with purpose. Group them by series, by size or by price, and put the strongest or most relevant work first for the person receiving the list. A collector who asked about works on paper should see works on paper first, not on the fourth page. A list that is ordered for its reader shows that the gallery listened.
Collectors trust documents that are explicit about money. Ambiguity about price, currency or what is included reads as either carelessness or negotiation, and neither helps.
If you show prices on lists sent to some collectors and not to others, make sure the version without prices does not contradict the version with them. Generating both from the same record avoids this.
The single most damaging error on an availability list is a work that is no longer available. It wastes the collector's time and suggests the gallery does not know its own inventory.
In Gallerists, offer PDFs and availability lists are generated from live artwork records, so a work marked sold this morning does not appear as available this afternoon.
An availability list is a piece of the gallery's identity, like its letterhead or its wall labels. It should look like the gallery, not like a spreadsheet export.
Keep the layout calm. Collectors are looking at art, and decorative frames, colored backgrounds or heavy graphics compete with the works. Gallerists applies the gallery's branding to every offer PDF and availability list automatically, so documents from different associates look the same.
Think about the second page as much as the first. Many lists are forwarded from a collector to an advisor, a partner or a designer, often without the original email. Every page should carry enough context to stand alone: the gallery name, the artist, the date of issue and the contact line. If a page is printed or saved on its own, it should still make sense.
How a list is sent affects whether it is read. A PDF attached to a long email with three other attachments is easy to ignore.
Timing matters too. A list sent the morning after an opening, when a collector has just seen the works in person, is read with much more attention than the same list sent two weeks later. A list sent in reply to a specific question should arrive the same day if possible, even if it is short. Speed signals that the gallery is organized and that the collector's interest is taken seriously.
Gallerists keeps a record of every offer sent from the collector's profile, so anyone on the team can see what a collector has already received before sending something new. Studio includes 50 offer PDFs per month, Gallery 500, Program 3,000 and Enterprise 10,000.
Run through this before every send.
A good list is easy when the data behind it is clean. In Gallerists, you enter each work once and generate branded offers and lists from it in a few clicks. See how the art availability list template works, then create an artwork record and generate your first offer from it.