What goes in an artwork inventory record

An inventory record is everything you know about one work, kept in one place. When it's good, you can write a caption, quote a price, pack a crate or answer a question about where a work has been without digging through old emails. These are the fields worth keeping.

What the work is

Title

What the work is called. For untitled works, add a number or a note in brackets so two of them never get mixed up.

Date

The year you finished it. A range like 2019–2021 is fine for something that took a while.

Medium

The materials and what they're on, written the way you'd want it on a caption: oil on linen, archival pigment print on cotton rag, bronze.

Inventory number

A number that belongs to this work alone and never changes. When titles and photos look alike, it settles which work you mean.

How big it is

Dimensions

Height, then width, then depth, with the unit. Keep the framed size too: the caption wants one and the wall and the crate want the other.

Weight

Worth having for shipping and hanging, and for anything one person can't lift.

Editions

For prints, photographs, casts and multiples, keep the edition as one record with each copy under it. The edition has the size and the medium, and each copy has its own number (3/10), price, status and buyer. Artist's proofs (AP) and hors commerce copies (HC) sit outside the numbered run, so count them separately. An open edition has no fixed size. Keeping the copies together is what lets you see, after a sale, how many are left.

Photos

A main image, straight on and uncropped, then details, the signature and the back. Keep the originals at full size. Installation shots belong to the show, and to each work you can see in them.

Price and status

Price

What you're asking, with the currency, or "price on request". When something sells, record the sale rather than changing the price. What it sold for, to whom and when is part of its history.

Status

Where it stands: available, reserved, sold, consigned out, on loan, not for sale, gifted or destroyed. Keep it current so you don't offer a collector something that's already gone.

Where it is

Where the work is today, down to the rack or shelf if you have a store, and a dated note each time it moves: studio, framer, storage, gallery, show.

Its history

• Exhibitions: the show, where and when, and the installation shots.
• Sales: who bought it, when, for how much, and the invoice.
• Consignments and loans: who had it, on what terms, and for how long.
• How you got it, if you collect too: bought, commissioned, given, inherited or swapped, from whom, and what you paid.
• Costs: framing, casting, crating and shipping, and who paid for each.

That's the work's provenance. Collectors and insurers ask for it, and anyone putting together a catalogue raisonné will need it. It's much easier to keep as you go than to piece together later.

Description and notes

Keep two kinds of text, and keep them apart. The description is for other people: what the work is about, the way you'd put it on your website. Notes are just for you: its condition, who framed it, what a collector said about it. That way nothing private ends up on a caption.

Documents

Certificates of authenticity, condition reports, the invoice for a work you bought, consignment agreements. Keep them with the work they belong to, so they turn up when you need them.