Bill Hester Fine Art 613 — Attraction in Santa Fe

The worst gallery experience of my life. Me, my wife and 2 other couples (all collectors) spent several days in Santa Fe and unfortunately we not only found our way into Bill Hester Fine Arts, we had the unfortunate opportunity to meet Bill Hester in person. To say he was delightful is a complete mis representation of our experience.

As I previously mentioned, we are collectors and we have been collecting for many years. We found a piece we loved in Mr. Hester's Gallery and so did one of the other couples we were with. We were all working with a very nice young man (Daniel) that works for Mr. Hester. To Daniels credit, I think he realized we were serious and he went and got Mr. Hester. To say Mr. Hester made all 4 of us feel unwelcome is an understatement. In fact, all of us heard Mr. Hester ask Daniel why he called him and then he proceeded to tell him and I quote:"Don't call me until you are ready to close." We were all turned off by what we heard, in fact, our friends moved on, but Mr. Hester left and my wife and I continued to talk to Daniel about the piece we really liked. In fact, it wasn't until we called home and had our son measure the space that we realized the piece just wasn't big enough. We then asked Daniel if he could check to see if the artist would do a commissioned piece for us. I wrote down all of my information and the measurement of the piece we were looking for. About 2 days later, I received a call from Daniel (again, very nice) he left me a voice message (that I still have) that stated the artist had been called and "unfortunately at this time Chris, (the Artist) is not in a position to do any commission work, but if you are interested in anything in the gallery, please let them know". Not sure why, but I was suspicious of this response, so I mediately tracked the artist down through social media. All of his postings make it clear that commission work was welcome. I personally reached out to the artist and not only did I learn that he does commission work, I learned that the artist had never been called about doing a piece for us.

If you think the story is boring and ends here, keep reading. After learning that I had been completely lied to, I decided to call and speak directly to Mr. Hester. I began by telling him how turned off we were by his comments to his employee (Daniel) in front of us. Mr. Hester then said to me, "What is wrong with that comment?" I responded by stating that what was wrong was that you were reprimanding an employee in front of your customer. He then said. "I wasn't reprimanding him! Mr. Goldberg, have you ever sold anything?" although completely irrelevant, I told him I sell every day. In fact, everyone sells everyday. He never apologized or denied what we heard him say. In fact, he justified it, and he told me he disagreed with me and that I was being very rude to him?

Remember, I haven't even mentioned the part about being lied to about the artist doing commission work. This is when it really became clear that calling him was a complete wast of my time. He told me that Bill Hester Fine arts only does commission work with one artist, so what I was told was correct. I reminded Mr. Hester that this was not what I was told, I had been told that the artist had been contacted and that the artist was not in a position to do any commission work at this time. Turns out the artist does commission work, but he had never even been called.

You would think in this age of transparency, that you would willingly help a customer or future customer get what they are looking for, even if you can't provide it to them, right now. Building long term relationships ultimately sells and this is something that Mr. Hester either doesn't understand or doesn't care to understand.

Mr. Hester, we live in a very transparent world and we can no longer hide behind inexcusable behavior and bad unethical sales tactics. While I may not be able to change your attitude or service mentality, I can at least share it...

While visiting Santa Fe on June 5th for a family function, we visited galleries on Canyon Road. Upon entering and viewing pieces in the Bill Hester gallery, he identified himself as the owner when asked. As I walked through mentioning my thoughts on pieces hanging in HiS gallery, he belittled, mocked, chastised my taste in the art pieces. As I was leaving the gallery and saying how beautiful a hanging was near the entrance, he again down graded my thoughts on the piece. As my family and I were discussing the encounter we came to the conclusion Bill Hester is rude, anti social, and lacks understanding of others knowledge and heart for the arts. I would not recommend this...

Wonderful service. I have purchased three paintings from this gallery and each time they have personally delivered my paintings to Houston, TX. The owner is a very interesting person. Take the time to visit with him. He is so interesting to talk with. He delivers painting all over the United States. He takes the time to inform and teach the buyer not only about the particular paintings, but about the...