The Resume

From the Women's Caucus for Art (WCA) packet "Presenting Your Work" written by Leslie J. Klein, edited by Ann Rosenthal and published by the WCA.

Gallery dealers and museum curators have offered different opinions when questioned about resumes they prefer. Some gallery dealers want a full resume, while others insist on limiting it to one or two pages. Some would like to know the full range of your accomplishments, others are only interested in what you have done recently. Some suggest printing a reproduction of your work on the resume or including a photo of yourself. In any case, they all agree on one thing: your resume should be clear and concise, arranged in an easily-perceived pattern, with the various categories well delineated.

These categories include:

• education
• employment
• exhibitions (in chronological order starting from the most recent)
• collections and/or important commissions
• awards and grants
• bibliography of books, articles and media appearances

You may also add other relevant categories, such as travel, specialized study programs, performances, guest workshops, lectures, and panel discussions. Here you can write a brief description clarifying your role and accomplishments in these activities.

The questions most frequently asked by artists involve how much of your early career to include, how to divide the exhibition category into the relevant sub-categories, and how choices are made for a condensed one or two-page resume. To address these dilemmas, many artists have used portions of their comprehensive resumes to construct different resumes for different purposes. For example, you would prominently list your public commissions if you are sending a packet for an interior design project; whereas, you would emphasize gallery and museum exhibitions if you were sending it to a museum curator. Arrange the above categories to highlight your accomplishments and minimize your weaker areas.

Your name, address and contact phone number should be at the top, and your name should appear on every page. If the recipient wishes to keep anything of your materials, the resume is sure to be one of them, so do not staple other material to the resume itself. Again, there are publications and resume services that will assist you in preparing a professional-looking resume.