London Inc. Winter 2025 - 13

In his mid-20s, Gibson found himself working for Asher
Roth of Roth Art on Talbot Street, a business he eventually
purchased when Roth retired. For a while after that, he was
in the retail art business, with a shop on King Street that
had a framing operation, employing three or four people. In
1997, he picked the whole operation up - minus the framing
operation, which he jettisoned - and moved it to a gallery at
157 Carling Street, where it still resides today.
At this point, Gibson recalls looking up at the paintings on
the wall and asking himself a question: " How the heck can I
pay the rent selling art? "
As it turned out, there was no black magic to it, and his
business brain thinks of it in relatively straightforward
fashion. " It's a unique asset, and you have to find those
people that are interested in what I'm doing, " he explains.
" There's a lot of assets that have value, and that people might
want to buy, for just that reason. "
Finding those people, however, took some doing: flying
back and forth across the country; pounding the pavement
at art fair after art fair; learning how best to operate in the
often-opaque world of art dealing.
But that alone doesn't (maybe can't) explain everything.
It's art, and art is subjective. " I do think I was born with a
good eye for value and quality; there's some instinct there, "
Gibson admits. But he's not too insistent on it. To run a good
art business, you first have to run a good business. Art,
perhaps like football, is all about fundamentals. " One motto
we have around here is whenever we make a decision, it's
artist first, " Gibson says. " If it's good for the artist, it's good
for the business. "
So, where to from here? After 40 years in the art business,
is Gibson at all ready to slow down, hang up the cleats (so to
speak)? Not by the looks of it.
" I think what I'll be doing is just working with the clients
It's hard to see any of that changing. Gibson has scaled the
mountain, built a business that survived then thrived, and
wants to bask in that for as long as he can. " The day-to-day
stress of trying to pay the rent or meet payroll, I mean those
days have left me a long time ago, " he reflects. But as long as
there's art to be sold, and buyers with appetites to be satisfied,
the work continues. " The phone rings and things happen.
That's the business. You can never ignore it. "
KIERAN
DELAMONT
that I work with now, and I'll probably meet a few more I'm
sure, and just keep aiming higher and higher because intellectually,
for me, it's really the stimulation I'm looking for, "
Gibson says. " I'm going to try to continue to pursue strong
younger artists. We've taken on some new ones lately that
are really very good, so it's fun working with them. "
WINTER 2025 | londonincmagazine.ca | 13
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London Inc. Winter 2025

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