Leading original artists & illustrative designers agents since 1985
London   New York   Tokyo

About Début Art

Début Art (established in 1985) is an artists' representative agency based in London, now with offices in New York and Tokyo. Début Art represents a groundbreaking roster of artists, encompassing both established and up-and-coming, globally based illustrators, motion and animation artists and illustrative designers.

As industry leaders for the past thirty years, we are known as principled advocates for our artists and for our industry.

Our clients and artists appreciate the agency’s straightforward, well informed and down-to-earth approach to projects, from editorial to global brand campaigns.

Our staff is research-oriented, sensitive to creative trends and to the international marketplace, so that we are highly effective partners with our clients in creating cutting-edge imagery and campaigns, no matter where in the world our artists are commissioned.

Début Art’s esteemed position in the industry is rooted in our ability to continuously find and foster cutting-edge artists and to set the standard in illustration trends, a position we have held from the early days of our agency.

Established in London in 1994, The Coningsby Gallery (a division of Début Art) pioneered the market for contemporary illustration as fine art, and continues to champion groundbreaking shows of both well-known and up-and-coming illustration and graphic artists through its Fitzrovia gallery and online store.

Enquiries to [email protected] and/or [email protected].

Artist submission guidelines

We’d love to hear from you! If you’d like to submit your work for consideration please email [email protected], including links to your website and/or your social media. Feel free to attach a PDF containing examples of your work, and also some information about your career and reasons for seeking representation would be helpful. If you are already represented by an illustration and/or motion agency in any territory(s) please detail these in your initial email.

If you have any questions about the submission process, call our London office on +44 20 7636 1064 or our New York office on +1 212 995 5044.

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Our industry connections

Début Art is a member of The Association of Illustrators UK (AOI),a member of The Society of Artists’ (Illustrators') Agents UK (SAA) and a member of the Agents for Change assembly. Début Art trades as per each organisations' membership requirements. Andrew Coningsby (Founder and MD of Début Art & The Coningsby Gallery) was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the AOI, 2012 - Oct 2016. Début Art was one of the founding members of the SAA. Andrew is one of the representatives of the SAA to The Design and Artists' Collecting Society (DACS), the British Copyright Council (BCC) and The Creators' Rights Alliance (CRA). Début Art has links in the US with the Society of Illustrators and ICON.

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