What was Picasso's approach to selling his art, and what can I learn from it?

Picasso said that early on, his drawings did not command high prices, but they all sold. The key lesson: your art must go out into the world. Picasso didn’t create his work in a vacuum—he created it, showed it to people immediately, and saw whether it could sell. And here’s the important part: when he died, he had 147,000 unsold works in his inventory. Those were the ones that didn’t sell, and he didn’t care. He got feedback, realized that direction wasn’t working, and moved on to the next thing that creatively inspired him. Just because you create work that doesn’t sell doesn’t mean you’re a bad artist or should have kept this as a hobby. It means you got feedback on what doesn’t work, so you can adjust. Close that feedback loop as quickly as possible.

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Asked by general teaching point · Answered by Patrick · Art Business Webinar · 2026-06-17