By Michael Granberry
The Dallas Morning News
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) Meet the Dallas entrepreneur who is using social media to scout and deliver exclusive museum-quality prints from a network of professional artists.
The Dallas Morning News
Chalk one up for clever ideas. Russian-born Dallas resident Ekaterina Kouznetsova uses an Instagram account (artmailofficial) and a website (artmail.co) to “make it effortless to buy incredible art and discover international artists.”
She’s the personal curator who scouts exclusive museum-quality prints from a network of professional artists and ships them right to your door.
Each image is matted or framed (your choice), and “our frames,” she says, “are environmentally sustainable,” meaning they’re made from a specific, recycled plastic to make them “shatter-proof.”
A recent graduate of the University of Texas at Dallas, with bachelor’s degrees in marketing, global business and art history, Kouznetsova, 23, moved from Moscow to North Texas 13 years ago.
“I had the initial idea about a year ago,” she says. “I had just stopped working for a magazine where I was the international art editor, working with artists all over the world.”
About 25 percent of the profits go directly to the artists, which she says is “significantly higher than any other print company that I know anything about.” She prides herself on representing artists whose lives she cares about.
“Knowing the story behind a piece makes it so much more touching,” she says.
