How do I put together an artist portfolio PDF?

A gallery has written asking for your portfolio and your work is spread across your phone, an external pendrive and a Drive folder. The afternoon disappears into InDesign or Canva, and the result still comes out uneven.

In this guide we'll analyze what a portfolio contains, how long it should be, and how to avoid rebuilding it from scratch every time.

What does a portfolio need?

Four things, in this order:

1. Cover. Your name, the title of the body of work if it has one, and the year. Nothing else.
2. Short statement. One paragraph, two at most. What you work on and how.
3. The work. Photo, title, year, medium and dimensions. One record per piece.
4. Contact. Website, email, city.

The full CV does not go inside the portfolio. It goes separately, and only if asked for. Mixing them means neither gets read.

How many pieces should I include?

Fewer than you want to. Between ten and twenty for a general presentation, and between six and twelve for a specific open call.

A portfolio of forty pieces does not get read through. Whoever opens it gives it a few minutes, and in those minutes the weakest piece weighs more than the strongest. If you are unsure about one, that is the one you take out.

If there are many, order them by series rather than by date. The person looking wants to understand what you do, not follow your chronology.

One piece per page or several?

It depends what it is for.

One per page when the work is the argument. That is what suits galleries, open calls and residencies, because it gives each piece room and shows you trust it.

Two per page when you want to show relationships between pieces, or when the body of work is large and you do not want a forty-page PDF.

Grid only as an appendix. It is useful for giving the full overview at the end, but a whole portfolio in grid reads like a product catalogue.

Do prices go in it?

In a portfolio for a gallery or an open call, no.

Prices go in a separate list, which you send when asked or when the conversation has moved along. Mixing them into the presentation of the work changes how the whole document reads.

The exception is a portfolio for a collector who has already asked about availability. There, yes, with prices and the status of each piece.

What should I use?

Canva or InDesign give you full control over the design, and that is the option when the portfolio is a design piece in itself. The cost is that every new version gets rebuilt by hand, and the dimensions and titles get copied from somewhere else, which is where the errors come in.

A bought template saves you the design but you still copy the data by hand.

Artium lets you tick the pieces in your inventory, choose the layout (one per page, two, or grid) and outputs the PDF with cover, statement and a QR to your portfolio. The data comes from the inventory, so the dimensions and titles are the ones you already entered once. Up to 60 pieces per portfolio. Free up to 100 pieces, and on the paid plan the PDF carries your logo and your colour instead of the Artium mark.

Artium was born in an artist's studio, solving exactly this. If this guide rings true, the app does it for you in one click, with the data you entered once.

Whatever you choose: put one together this week with twelve pieces, even if nobody has asked for it yet. The person who misses an open call is not the one without work, it is the one who needs three days to assemble a PDF.