'WIBTA if I refuse to buy a tacky painting my SIL made for my family?'
"WIBTA if I refuse to buy a tacky painting my SIL made for my family?"
tacky-art-help
I’m 52F and this situation concerns my husband’s brother “Drew” (59M) and his wife of 5 years “Susanne” (35F). Drew supports Susanne on his income while she focuses on her dream of being an artist. She makes paintings of people and animals, and has a website where she advertises her work for sale.
Privately, I don’t think her art is very good. It’s absolutely better than what I could do, but it doesn’t look “professional,” if you know what I mean. My husband feels the same, so we have not opted to purchase any of her art, despite her dropping hints here and there about it.
The art on her site is priced in the $3-5K range. I realize that labor and cost of materials must be taken into account, but given the quality, those prices seem outrageous to me.
I suspect she’s not making regular sales, because she started making portraits of friends, family, or pets “as a surprise,” and usually, said family and friends end up feeling obligated to buy the painting as a courtesy. Unfortunately, my husband and I were the latest victims of this sales tactic.
My son recently proposed to his girlfriend, and we took the two of them, his girlfriend's parents, and our daughter out to a fancy dinner to celebrate. Both my kids posted pictures from dinner on social media.
Without telling anyone, Susanne decided to make a painting of one of these pictures, of everyone smiling for the camera. She revealed the big “surprise” at a party she and Drew hosted two weeks ago.
The painting is a whopping 40x58”, and I honestly think it’s awful... kitsch and tacky. I told Susanne it was sweet of her to commemorate such a special moment in our family, but I carefully avoided saying anything about “liking” it.
As I feared, she kept dropping hints throughout the party about how we can buy it as a wedding gift, and she would be happy to give us a big discount off what she would charge someone else. (Who else would buy it?)
I politely dodged these hints, and she was clearly disappointed. Over the weekend, Drew reached out to my husband to say that Susanne feels hurt that we never made an offer.
He said it’s becoming obvious as the years go by that we’ve never purchased one of her pieces, even though we have the means to do so and it would mean a lot to them if we buy the painting. Her original asking price was $2.5K, and Drew said he’ll reduce it further to $1900.
It's not about the money (not entirely.) It’s the principle of the thing. I feel like I’m being strongarmed into paying for something I never asked for, don’t like, and don’t have space for in my house. I asked, and my son and his fiancée don’t want it.
My husband thinks we should just buy it to keep the peace in the family and avoid a potential rift with Susanne and Drew. He also says the way I talk makes me sound like a snob (even though I would never share these opinions with anyone I know but him.) WIBTA if I stand my ground and refuse?
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
Apart-Scene-9059
NTA: I will simply ask her why won't she gift it to the happy couple and follow up asking did she only make the painting so that she can make money and not for her nephew and his new fiancée. You're definitely not wrong but I'm petty and would make sure to turn this around on her.
The OP responded here:
tacky-art-help
Thank you for your judgement, I think this is a great idea. Though, I know Susanne's underlying issue is that she thinks we don't like her art (which is true), and I'm afraid she'll keep pushing until she either makes the sale or I give a firm no.
Humble_Plantain_5918
I mean, it's bad business to create something on prospect when it's that personal and specific to such a small group of people. If she was going to try to sell it she should have approached the prospective buyers, i.e., the people who went to that event, whether they'd be interested in commissioning it. She can't be mad that there's no interest in buying an unsolicited product.
ConsequenceNovel101
She wouldn’t be able to sell it to anyone if she didn’t get permission from person who took the photo as well as model releases signed from the people she painted. You can’t just take a copyrighted photograph, use it as your subject and then try to make money off it. You can certainly get away with a lot but the minute you try to profit off it and sell your work, it gets very very very specific.
buttercupgrump
NTA.
"My husband thinks we should just buy it to keep the peace in the family"
Absolutely not! Do you know what will happen next? She'll do a painting of the wedding or any potential pregnancy announcements or any other milestones. Susanne will not stop. After all, you were willing to buy one painting. Why not buy another? Then another and another and another.
celticmusebooks
First off, as a working artist and art professor-- NO professional artist would paint from a photo without express permission so she's not a professional. Second that size is ridiculous. It puts me in mind of the Gigantic and totally awful painting Amy had made of her and Penny in Big Bang Theory.
I would urge you to simply tell Drew (kindly but firmly) that you aren't going to buy the painting or any of Suzanne's artwork and ask him to please let it drop. If you buy this painting you're setting yourself up for more of Suzanne's Ambush Marketing.
I won't lie--- now I'm dying to see the painting, LOL.
NTA for not wanting to pay $2k for bad art.
The OP responded here:
tacky-art-help
Thank you for your input! I admit I don't really know any artists, but I couldn't imagine that professionals go about making sales this way. The sizes are also very off-putting indeed. All her paintings are huge, which I think is even more difficult to pull off if the artist's skill isn't high.
"I won't lie--- now I'm dying to see the painting, LOL."
I totally get it... posting any of her art online would definitely make me feel like the AH though!
MayorSalsa
Haha definitely NTA. I think it's normal to support artists in your family or social circle by buying a small or medium piece even if you don't really like it that much. However expecting pity purchases to the tune of thousands of dollars is ridiculous.
More over, making tailor made "gifts" depicting certain people and then expecting them to pay for it so so tacky. I wonder how she even feels good doing this, it's pretty obvious at this point that she is forcing people to pay and not earning the sales.
I'd say stand your ground and make it clear that she should not be making huge portaits of people without their consent. Even if it were a great piece, people just don't necessarily want that sort of thing.