A place to follow artists, study their work, and talk about it.

Why another art site

It started with Canadian artists. I wanted to follow the painters of the Professional Native Indian Artists Inc., the group Norval Morrisseau, Daphne Odjig and Alex Janvier formed in 1973, and I could not find for them the resources the big platforms give other artists. They were drowned out by the famous names, and the platforms decide which artists are worth showing and can drop them without notice. Here the roster grows with the community: a little-known regional painter gets the same tools as a household name.

The site is independent. There are no advertisers to please, so the only question about an artist is whether people care about the work.

Common questions

Which auctions are covered?

Upcoming lots and realized prices come from a growing set of auction houses, and the coverage is not exhaustive. If a sale or a house you care about is missing, write to us and we will look at adding it.

An artist I follow is not here.

Suggest them. Search for the name on the communities page and, when nothing matches, request the community. Requests are reviewed by a person.

I am an artist, or I represent an estate. Can I run my community?

Yes. Apply for verification from your account. Verified artists and estates own their community, moderate its discussion, and are marked as authoritative on their own work. Galleries, museums, and scholars can be verified too.

What are the rules?

Talk about art. Politics, personal disputes, and off-topic promotion belong elsewhere, and posts that stray are removed. The site is for art made by people: images generated by AI are not accepted as artwork. That still leaves room for tools that reinterpret an existing work, such as a photorealistic rendering of a painting, and those are always labelled.

What is chitra.ai?

Some descriptions, summaries, and news notes are written by an assistant and are always labelled as such. It keeps pages useful while the community fills them in, and any member can correct it in the discussion.

I found a mistake.

Tell us. Start a discussion on the work’s page, or send an email, and we will correct the record.

Help fill the map

The artists map shows where the roster comes from, and it is uneven. Whole regions are thin, because one person cannot know every tradition.

If you know the painters of your city, your country, or your family’s heritage, suggest them, join their communities, and post what you know. That is how the site grows.