How to Write an Artwork Description: Template and Examples
In short
An artwork description is the text about one specific work. It has two parts. The first is a short block of facts: title, year, medium and size. The second is a few sentences on what the work shows, how it was made and why. Most artists need three lengths: a label, a short listing description and a fuller text for the work's own page.
This article lists the facts to include and explains what to say about the work. It also covers how long each version should be. It then gives a template you can copy and five examples for different media. It ends with where the description works hardest: on the work's own page on your website.
What an Artwork Description Is — and What It Is Not
It describes one work; your statement describes your practice, and your bio describes you.
An artwork description helps someone who cannot stand in front of the work understand it. It tells them what they see, what it is made of and what deserves a closer look.
It sits next to three other texts, each with its own job:
- Artwork description: one work, its facts and its story.
- Series text: what connects a group of works.
- Artist statement: your practice as a whole. See how to write an artist statement.
- Artist bio: who you are.
Keep them separate. A description that repeats your statement says nothing specific about the work in front of the reader.
The Facts to List for Every Work
Start with the facts a buyer, curator or registrar will need, in a consistent order.
- Title and year. Use the same title everywhere the work appears.
- Medium and support. Be exact: "oil on linen", "archival pigment print on cotton rag paper", "glazed stoneware".
- Dimensions. Height × width × depth, in centimetres and inches. For framed works, say whether the size includes the frame.
- Edition. For prints, photographs and digital works: edition size, the number of this copy and any artist's proofs.
- Details that change value or handling: signed or unsigned, framed or unframed, ready to hang, condition.
- Availability. Available, sold, on loan or not for sale. For prices, follow the same approach across all your works.
This block is often called a tombstone or label. It answers the practical questions before anyone has to ask.
What to Say About the Work
Write what the image cannot show: how the work was made, what it is about and what to notice.
After the facts, add a short paragraph. Cover what matters for this work and skip the rest:
- What the viewer sees: subject, composition, colour, scale. Describe it plainly.
- How it was made: a process or material choice that shapes the result, such as layered glazes or a long exposure.
- Why it exists: the idea, place or question behind it, in one or two sentences.
- What to look closer at: a detail, texture or change that rewards attention.
Write in plain language and keep facts separate from interpretation. Our guide to writing artwork pages for Google and AI covers how this text works on a web page.
How Long Should an Artwork Description Be?
Keep one set of facts and write the paragraph in the length the space allows.
- Label: the facts block only, plus one short line if there is room. For exhibitions and printed lists.
- Short description, about 50–80 words: facts plus two or three sentences. For open calls, social posts and listings.
- Full description, about 150–250 words: facts plus a fuller paragraph. For the work's own page on your website.
When an application or venue gives a limit, follow it exactly. Without a limit, the short version usually suits a listing. The full version belongs on your site.
An Artwork Description Template You Can Copy
Fill in each bracket, keep the order, and delete what does not apply.
Facts:
[Title], [year]
[Medium] on [support]
[Height] × [width] × [depth] cm / [height] × [width] × [depth] in
[Edition: X of Y, plus Z artist's proofs]
[Signed / unsigned], [framed / unframed]
[Available / sold / not for sale]
Description:
[Title] shows [subject or what the viewer sees]. It was made by [process or technique], which [what the process adds to the work]. The work comes from [idea, place or question]. Look closely at [detail that rewards attention]. It is part of [series], [one line on what connects the series].
Use the first two sentences for the short version. Use all of them, plus anything a collector would ask, for the full version.
Artwork Description Examples for Different Media
These examples are written for illustration; the works and titles are invented.
Oil painting (short description):
Low Tide, 2025. Oil on linen, 60 × 80 cm (23.6 × 31.5 in). Signed on the reverse, unframed.
A wide, almost empty shoreline at dusk, painted in thin layers that let the linen show through in the sky. The work began as a series of quick sketches on the same beach over one winter. Look for the single figure near the horizon, painted last.
Photograph (short description):
Platform 4, 2024. Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, 50 × 70 cm (19.7 × 27.6 in). Edition of 7, plus 2 artist's proofs.
A commuter platform photographed during a power cut, lit only by phone screens. Shot on a long exposure, the people blur while the lights stay sharp. It is part of a series on how cities change at night.
Digital work (short description):
Weather Field No. 3, 2026. Generative animation, 4K video, 12-minute loop. Edition of 5.
A slow landscape that changes shape with real wind data from one coastal station. No two hours of the loop look the same. It is shown best on a large screen in a quiet room.
Ceramic sculpture (short description):
Tool Vessel II, 2025. Hand-built stoneware with iron glaze, 34 × 18 × 18 cm (13.4 × 7.1 × 7.1 in).
A tall vessel whose profile is taken from an old workshop clamp. The iron glaze breaks to brown on the edges, showing the marks of the hand. It is one of six vessels made from the same set of tools.
Work on paper (full description, opening):
Field Notes, 2023. Ink and graphite on paper, 30 × 42 cm (11.8 × 16.5 in). Framed in oak with museum glass.
A dense drawing of plants collected along one railway embankment, drawn at actual size. Each plant was drawn on the day it was found, so the page records a single summer in order. The handwritten dates along the edge mark each visit.
Notice what each example does. It gives exact facts first. It describes what the viewer sees in plain words. And it points to one detail worth a second look.
How to Write Your Description Step by Step
Start in front of the work, write too much, then cut.
- Measure the work and check the medium, edition and signature before you write anything else.
- Look at the work for two minutes and note what you see first, second and last.
- Write down how it was made and one reason it exists.
- Draft the full version: facts, then a paragraph of 150–250 words.
- Cut it to two or three sentences for the short version.
- Read it beside the image. Remove anything the image already shows clearly.
- Keep the facts identical everywhere: website, applications, social posts and invoices.
AI tools can help with grammar or a first draft, but they cannot see your process or check your measurements. Our guide to writing artist website content that sounds like you covers where that line sits.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Most weak descriptions fail in the same few ways.
- Missing facts. A description without dimensions or medium makes buyers ask, or leave.
- Describing only feelings. "A powerful piece full of emotion" tells the reader nothing about the work.
- Repeating the statement. Text that could sit under any of your works belongs in the statement.
- Different facts in different places. A size on your website that differs from the invoice creates doubt.
- Forgetting the edition. Buyers of prints and digital works need to know how many exist.
- Out-of-date status. A sold work still marked available costs you trust.
Where Your Artwork Descriptions Should Live
Each work deserves its own page, where the description, the images and the facts stay together.
A description in an application is read once. On your website, it is read every time someone finds the work. That is why each work needs its own page. It should hold the facts, the description and images large enough to show the surface.
On a Digital Original website, each work has its own page under your name. Full-quality images and Deep Zoom let people look closely. Artwork pages are built to be found in Google and AI search. A clear description helps people understand the work they found. For the page structure and search side, see our guide to writing artwork pages for Google and AI.
All images in this article show Rhythm (2025, acrylic on canvas) by Ukrainian artist Ivanka Nechyporuk. See more of her work on ivanka-nechyporuk.art and on Instagram at @ivanka__nechyporuk, and read our interview with Ivanka Nechyporuk.
Give every work its own page, with its facts and its story, on a professional artist website.
