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Our Stories
Entrepreneurial Experience : Venture Team Update: Ugallery.com
The UGallery.com team (left to right): Alex Farkas, Greg Rosborough, and Stephen Tanenbaum.
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September 2010
By Liz Warren-Pederson
Back in 2006, UA students Alex Farkas, Stephen Tanenbaum, and Greg Rosborough connected in the McGuire Entrepreneurship Program around a fundamental problem of the art business: how can promising young artists connect with potential buyers?
“Our solution was Ugallery.com, a virtual gallery that does that and more,” said gallery director Farkas. “Upon graduation, we decided to take the leap and turn Ugallery into a reality.”
They pooled their case competition winnings and collective savings and launched the website, which over the last four years has grown considerably. In 2007, they launched an office in New York, and in March of this year, opened a second office in San Francisco’s Mission District.
Along the way, they’ve racked up press coverage in The Wall Street Journal, Art in America, and more — plus, they provided artwork for set decoration on the Meryl Streep movie It's Complicated.
Looking back at Ugallery’s journey to date, Farkas singles out two important milestones. “First, the day we finalized our first round of outside investment,” he said. “Stephen and I felt like we were walking on air. We had been working on Ugallery for a year and a half and it was amazing validation of our efforts and so exciting to imagine where the business would go.”
Second, Farkas said that at the 2009 Affordable Art Fair in New York, Ugallery sold a five-by-six foot painting to the chairman of the American Federation of Arts, one of the oldest arts organizations in the country. “We spoke at length with the chairman. He and his wife loved the artist's work and the concept of Ugallery,” Farkas said. “It was a wonderful experience to add such a renowned art world figure to our clientele.”
Read the full story in eller buzz.
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