Meet Ross and Brian Raitman of Raitman Art Galleries

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ross and Brian Raitman.

Ross and Brian, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
We opened our first gallery on North Main Street in Breckenridge in 2007. Brian was fresh out of college and Ross was studying at the University of Colorado. We are brothers. Our parents were involved in helping to get the business started. Opening in 2007 presented a major challenge: not long after we opened our doors the American economy entered a deep recession. It was not an ideal environment for selling art. However, 12 years later, we proudly own three locations, with two in Breckenridge and one in Vail.

Through a deep seeded passion for the art world, the innovation and risk-taking that come with youth and a desire to grow our business so that we could accomplish our mission of spreading beauty throughout the world, we can say that we have succeeded.

After opening our first gallery, we expanded the space in 2011. In 2013, we opened our Vail location. In 2017 we opened our second location in Breckenridge. In 2018 we moved our Vail location into space more than double the size of our original gallery in Vail Village.

As brothers, we are grateful to intimately know each other’s strengths and to allow each other to focus on the areas of the business that we are best at and most passionate about. We are very hands-on as owners of our galleries and Ross can almost always be found in our Vail space, with Brian in Breckenridge.

We are rooted in the age-old American tradition of small, family-run businesses. We love where we live so our galleries have a distinctive focus on representing artists that reside here, in Colorado. We also feature historical pieces from around the world and we have been known to occasionally represent very select artists from outside of our region and even our country. The art we show is impeccable in quality and we are continually working to provide the most beautiful art collection around. Both in taste and clientele, our reach extends far beyond our mountain towns. We have fostered a collector base that extends to every continent, save Antarctica.

Our galleries are adorned with artwork that is unique, well executed and uplifting. We show only original pieces, save for some sculptural works created as limited editions. The overwhelming majority of the works in our collection are created by living, working, professional American artists. We prefer contemporary representational works that capture the beauty of the mountains we call home, along with abstracts that push creativity to new heights. We only represent artists who have truly mastered their unique mediums and styles. Through their creative brilliance, each artist shown in our galleries has been rewarded with well regarded national and international reputations. The majority are featured in major public collections, from those of museums to Fortune 100 companies.

Has it been a smooth road?
Nope! Opening right before a turbulent economic time in our country’s history proved to be very challenging. We quickly decided that our galleries should serve as uplifting places to wander and explore. We find that art should represent place and memories. Brushstrokes shall speak of beautiful moments. Colors and materials shall preserve our amazing world. Art ought to, above all, make us smile. Thus, a great deal of thought is put into every piece we choose to show to our visitors.

Of course, we’ve run into the difficulty that every entrepreneur does when growing their business of moving from doing what you set out to do (show and sell art) to teaching others to replicate what we’ve done to build our business. We’ve been fortunate to have many great sales consultants work for us over the years.

The art world, like all other retail businesses, has changed dramatically with the growth in online shopping. With physical locations as our business model, it can prove challenging to constantly adapt to the online marketplace. We believe that fine art must be seen in person to truly be appreciated, so we’ve really focused on making our collection unique and the pieces we show one-of-a-kind. We strive to make our galleries exciting experiences upon walking in and thrive with repeat clientele. We’re also fortunate to be young enough to understand how to operate online so we quickly developed a website and have made that evolve over the years so that it functions smoothly on all sorts of devices.

We’d love to hear more about what you do.
We’ve kind of hit on this already but some key points:

We represent many of the best artists in the state of Colorado.
We specialize in unique, uplifting, incredibly well executed original artwork.
We are known for all of the above, and our ability to educate visitors to our galleries on different artistic styles, mediums and periods in art history.

We are most proud of helping people who have never purchased artwork before build exciting, valuable art collections. We derive a great deal of joy from turning people who never thought they would purchase fine works of art into full-fledged art collectors.

We have been able to set our galleries apart through our success. In an industry that struggles to thrive and sees a plethora of galleries close, we have been able to weather tough economic times at the beginning of our company and turn that into a great deal of expansion. The artists we represent set us apart as well, as their work is inspiring, creative and expertly created.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
As we are in the mountains, we can’t really speak to operating in Denver. However, we’ve really found a niche in the Colorado art scene as a whole and a big part of that is the fact that our beautiful mountains attract people from all over the world.

Pricing:

• Our collection features works that start at $139 and has pieces on loan to museums that are valued in the millions.

Contact Info:

• Address: 100 N. Main Street, Breckenridge, CO
  421 S. Main Street, Breckenridge, CO
  223 Gore Creek Drive, Vail, CO
• Website: RaitmanArt.com
• Phone: 970-547-8399
• Email: fineart@raitmanart.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/raitmanartgalleries
• Facebook: facebook.com/raitmanart

Getting in touch: VoyageDenver is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.