I’m Hannah Davis and I started Art Gallery Originals an Oil Portrait brokerage service in Winston-Salem, NC in 2003. We offer fine art at affordable prices through interior design professionals. Our artists specialize in Oil Portraits of Children, Executives and Pets. Often I am asked how I came to found an Oil Portrait business. Here is how Art Gallery Originals came to be.
Ten years ago I was approaching 40, single with few responsibilities and working in NC in investment sales. At a family wedding my cousin approached me with an inquiry which was also a business idea. Over some wedding cake at the reception my cousin said that he and his wife wanted to commission an Oil Portrait of their daughter. Initially my cousin was fine with the Oil Portrait idea but when he learned the painting would cost over $10,000 he had second thoughts. His question to me and his business idea was, “You have relationships with artists internationally, can we commission a quality Children’s Oil Portrait at an affordable price? And if so, can you offer this same Children’s Oil Portrait commission service to other families?”
My cousin knew that although I enjoyed my career in finance, I had an entrepreneurial spirit. He was aware that I had traveled extensively abroad and had developed personal relationships with artists and prominent figures in the international art community. Although not an artist myself, I have always been interested in art. My major in college was History but I had taken the course work required for a major in Art History. At Princeton my cousin and I had even taken together Baroque Art and Modern Art, favorite courses for both of us.
