When Jen Bekman opened her pocket-sized Lower East Side gallery in 2003, her choice of location was destiny. At the time Spring Street west of Bowery was a chic shopping strip where you could indulge a passion for affordable art after you were done buying clothes. But Jen banked on changes that were also destined when the New Museum would open. Future forward: the street has since blossomed into an even busier corridor for art and commerce.

Bekman, a former Bay Area techie who was previously involved with such established web entities as Unbeige.com and Meetup.com reached for another star in 2007, when she came up with 20×200, her online gallery for affordable limited edition prints. Finding another way to bring new collectors who didn’t necessarily know anything about buying art together with emerging artists who didn’t necessarily have a gallery behind them was a natural for the self-confessed neophyte - who admits that she didn’t know anything about selling art back in the day. With 20×200 she saw a way to extend the reach of her gallery beyond its four walls. “There was an opportunity to make collecting art something that everyone could do,” she said in a recent interview for the New York Times.

A few sold-out editions for 20×200, left to right: Word Study by Mickey Smith; Untitled (Astoria Park, Queens) by Carlo Van de Roer; Untitled (Thrift) by Brian Ulrich. Copyright the artists, courtesy Jen Bekman Projects.

The idea for the project was to produce editions in three size and price ranges. At the outset, and this is where the name 20×200 comes in, there would be 8 x 10-inch prints in an edition of 200 selling for $20 dollars, and 16 x 20-inch prints in an edition of 20 selling for $200, with a larger-sized offering as well. The editions were announced via email and not surprisingly, a feeding frenzy soon became the norm as the $20 prints would often be snapped up within an hour of being announced.

To date, more than 50,000 prints have sold, making 20×200 a going concern - something unusual for a startup in today’s art world. Even more unusual was the $800,000 + capitalization Bekman closed on last week. Tony Conrad, the True Ventures partner who led a group of west coast investors on the deal, said he was “wowed by the potential of Jen’s vision to leverage the Internet to lower the velvet rope to the art world and make collecting accessible to everyone. [This] is a big idea. One built of a lot of little pieces.” To read more, visit the 20×200 blog.

Currently on view at the gallery is A Square: Nine color photographs by Hosang Park. Jen Bekman. 6 Spring Street, New York, NY. 212.219-0166.

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