About Maestra
From a north-facing studio to your wall.
From a north-facing studio in Beirut to a converted garage in Buenos Aires. From an attic in Istanbul to a quiet room in Mexico City. Our artists live where they live — and we go to find them.
Maestra is a concierge for original, hand-painted art — introduced to you personally, painted for you specifically, shipped signed and authenticated anywhere in the world.
What we are
A concierge, not a marketplace.
Maestra is the person who introduces you to the painter, reads your brief, makes the match, and stands behind every piece. What we are not is a listings site — you won't find a million scrolling works here, because we don't think that's how anyone actually buys art they love.
Every piece on the site is a one-of-one, hand-painted original. Every artist has been personally introduced — by another painter, a gallerist we trust, or occasionally a direct approach we followed through on. We turn down many more than we accept.
The roster is small, on purpose. It will stay small, on purpose.
Why we exist
The gap no one was serving.
Most ways of buying art online fall into three categories. At one end, scale marketplaces with millions of pieces from self-submitted artists — a lot of volume, very little curation, and no way for a buyer to tell real from hobby. At the other end, auction houses — authority, theatre, a particular kind of pricing that assumes you're already in the room.
And then there's the gallery model — curated, yes, but intermediated. The buyer pays a markup that goes to the gallery, not the artist. The artist is locked to a geography and a schedule. The buyer, meanwhile, usually can't reach the artist except through their dealer.
We wanted a third path. A roster small enough to know personally. An artist network that lives in studios from Buenos Aires to Beirut. A buyer experience where the concierge has read every brief and knows every painter. Direct payment to artists, no dealer markup, shipping anywhere.
That's what we built.
The network
The artists are the product.
Every artist who joins Maestra is personally introduced. The introduction comes from another painter we work with, a gallerist whose taste we trust, a curator, or occasionally a direct approach we followed up on after seeing work we couldn't stop thinking about.
We look at studio practice — does the painter actually keep a studio, work consistently, finish pieces. We look at bibliography, exhibitions, training. We look at consistency of output: an artist who can reliably deliver a great piece across multiple commissions is different from one who occasionally catches lightning. And we look at how they handle clients — because a bespoke commission is a conversation, and some people are better at that conversation than others.
Our artists live in cities across multiple continents — currently concentrated in a handful of places we know well, expanding slowly as the right introductions arrive. Every country we add, we add because an artist we trust vouched for another.
What we believe
Six things we won't compromise on.
One-of-one only.
No prints. No reproductions. No AI-generated work. Every piece is a single, hand-painted original, signed by the artist — and the Certificate of Authenticity records which composition it references.
Direct from the artist.
No gallery markup, no dealer middle layer. You pay a fair price; the artist receives a larger share of it than they would through a traditional gallery. The concierge is the only hand between the buyer and the painter.
Introduced, not self-submitted.
Every artist on the roster was introduced by someone we trust — another painter, a gallerist, a curator. Open submissions turn marketplaces into catalogs; we wanted something closer to a recommendation.
Small roster, on purpose.
We'd rather have a hundred artists we can vouch for than a hundred thousand we can't. The roster grows slowly, by invitation, and we say no more often than we say yes.
We don't mark up framing.
Framing is architectural — it belongs with a local framer who can see the piece, the room, and the light. We ship rolled, we introduce you to framers we trust, and we take no margin on the work.
The concierge reads every brief.
A bespoke brief lands in a human's inbox, not an automated pipeline. We read, we think, we propose. The reply is always within 24 hours, always from a person who knows the artist we're recommending.
How we pick artists
Introduction, not application.
There's no open submission form. An artist joins Maestra only when another artist on the roster, a gallerist we work with, or a trusted collector puts their name forward. We then go out and find the studio — in person when we can, via deep remote conversation when distance prevents it.
We look for four things: a real studio practice (not a hobby or a side project), a consistent body of work (so a commission isn't a gamble), a willingness to work through milestone feedback (because bespoke is a conversation), and a voice we haven't already heard somewhere else on the roster.
When someone's right, onboarding takes several weeks. A portfolio session, a commission trial, a first listing. When someone's not right, we say so honestly and move on — it's a small roster, and we care about the shape of it.
How we work with collectors
A real person reads every email.
Our concierge responds to every inquiry within 24 hours. That's not an SLA we picked from a playbook; it's a promise that exists because, at the scale we work, there's no excuse for it to take longer.
When you send a bespoke brief, it lands in a human's inbox. We read it, think about which artist it might suit, write back with a specific recommendation and a short note on why. When your piece is in progress, we sit between you and the artist for every milestone — concept, work-in-progress, final — so no feedback gets lost in translation.
If a piece arrives damaged, we handle it. If a timeline slips, we tell you before you have to ask. If something goes genuinely wrong — rare, but not never — we stand behind it.
Three ways to collect
Original. Made to Size. Bespoke.
An Original is a one-of-one painting that already exists. You see it, you buy it, you own the only one there will ever be. Its COA records it as the Primary Work of its composition.
Made to Sizeis a new, hand-painted variation of an existing composition — the same artist, at the size that fits your wall. Also one-of-one. Its COA records it as an Artist's Variant.
Bespoke is a new composition, painted to your brief. Four to eight weeks, milestone-reviewed, the most personal of the three.
Stakes in the ground
What we won't do.
- No
We won't sell prints.
A print is not an original painting, even when the artist signs it. We exist to move original work. If you want a print, the market has plenty of options — it's just not us.
- No
We won't sell AI-generated work.
An AI-generated image, even one touched up with paint, is not a hand-painted original. Our line is unambiguous: every piece is painted by a human being, from start to finish.
- No
We won't mark up framing.
Framing adds 30–60% at most online galleries, for work done no better than a local framer would do. We pass the introduction through at cost, with no margin.
- No
We won't accept anonymous artists.
Every artist who joins Maestra has their full practice on file with us — training, studio, bibliography, references. A real collector is buying a real hand; there's no version of that without real names.
- No
We won't take IP.
The artist retains full rights to their work. We license what we need for shipping, marketing, and authentication — nothing more. No exclusivity that keeps them from showing elsewhere.
- No
We won't let a commission ship late without telling you.
Timelines slip — it happens. When they do, we tell you before you have to ask, and we always have the artist's version of what and why. You'll never be surprised by silence.
Get in touch
Write us — we read every email.
Questions about a piece, a bespoke idea, a trade program enquiry, or a painter you think we should know about — we'd like to hear from you.
For artists
Maestra is invitation-only, but the invitation often starts with a line from someone who already knows us — another painter, a gallerist, a collector. If you're an artist we should know about, or you know one, we'd like to hear about them.