Since 1984, Geary Gallery has been showcasing the works of local artists from its location on the Boston Post Road in Darien. It is owned by the husband-and-wife team Tom and Anne Geary, who came to this line of business in an unlikely way ”” they were collaborating with Anne”™s brothers in Florida, who were experimenting with opening 10,000-square-foot craft stores.
“Anne and I moved down to Florida and got involved in the business,” said Tom Geary in an interview with the Business Journal. “We ended up opening eight stores down in Florida ”” four in Orlando and four on the west coast.”
“I had a lot of different experiences in different types of businesses before I started this one,” he added, revealing that over the years he had started 16 other businesses, including two restaurants, a boatyard and a gypsum business.
At the gallery section of the business, Anne Geary selects among numerous photo submissions of artists”™ works.
“We always try to stay a step above where we”™ve been, either equal to or above where we”™ve been,” Tom Geary explained. “That”™s what we use as our grading point, and we have artists come in based on that.”
The gallery”™s exhibit changes every 45 days and presently eight artists have their work on display. Tom Geary acknowledged there has been some grief associated with potential clients perusing the gallery”™s exhibit, as some choose to circumvent the gallery by searching an artist online and contacting them directly for a discounted price on one of their exhibited works. Most artists, however, will report these communications.
“I”™ve had other gallery owners tell me that they have contracts with their artists,” Geary said. “But I don”™t want to get into that, because we have a very good working relationship with all of our artists.”
Geary Gallery also provides framing and restoration services in addition to exhibiting art. The gallery”™s framing services in particular have been subject to positive word of mouth over the years.
“I like to think that it”™s the service that we provide that gets people to keep coming back,” Geary said. “We basically stopped our advertising years ago because everybody coming in would say so-and-so told me I had to come here.”
The gallery is known to deal with unusual framing projects that other shops are unable to handle. These include the framing of christening gowns, jerseys and an eight-foot poster.
“We”™re at a point now where other (shops) will tell their customers to bring it here,” Geary said.
The team at Geary Gallery also engages in oil painting and framing restoration, a service Geary said no other galleries provide.
“The restoration I would say speaks for itself,” he said. “You take a painting that you can hardly even see what it is and clean it, and the customer comes in, they don”™t even recognize the painting when they pick it back up. That”™s always very rewarding, getting that sort of comment from customers.”
