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Mont Art House in Houston is bringing a new level of accessibility to visual arts.

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Picture the go-to tropes when depicting art galleries: curators and attendants who get huffy when you can’t differentiate chiaroscuro from contrapposto. Brokers and owners pointedly ignoring any visitors who look like they can’t afford anything on the walls. The artists themselves struggling to align their creative vision with marketability so they can pay their bills.

While hardly a universal experience, it still reflects some of the common anxieties that art enthusiasts face when they want to start learning and appreciating—perhaps even begin collecting. Jennifer Monteleone, founder and owner of Sixth Ward’s Mont Art House, wants to challenge these prevailing notions by lowering the barriers to entry into the visual and fine art worlds. For artists and fans alike, she hopes that anyone from any background and budget can celebrate all the different forms the human imagination can take.

“It begins with my respect for people who are creative, and who have that need and passion to be creative,” Monteleone says. “I understood that the arts were this big overarching thing, and the artists themselves were always just like magic to me.”

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Mont Art House is located in a historic building in Sixth Ward.

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A former musical theater kid, she gravitated toward visual artists in her friend circles, riveted by their passion and gift for translating the images in their heads into tangible forms. Over time, these relationships helped her build up her own penchant for finding and sourcing the perfect art for peoples’ homes. Monteleone found her calling. On one end, helping artists who don’t always enjoy the marketing side of their business find buyers. On the other, crafting collections for different tastes, familiarity with artistic concepts, and price points, and all “in a kind way, in a joyful way, in a transparent way,” she adds.

Mont Art House opened in the summer of 2019 with this ethos as the central focus. Art, to the team, is not intended as an investment to appreciate value over time. It brings beauty and happiness to the here and now, with the price tag reflecting the artist’s labor and materials over something akin to a stock portfolio on canvas (or paper, or ceramic, etcetera). The artists represented by Mont set their own prices, with the gallery offering advice if asked, and can range from anywhere between $100 to $10,000, which is the maximum the gallery allows. Because Mont takes a lower cut than some galleries, the artists are able to make their prices more manageable for consumers.

The gallery’s services include business consulting for artists, selecting or commissioning art for collectors, sourcing art from all over the world should Mont not have what a customer needs, coordinating shipping, and going to galleries with clients to serve as a middleperson on deals.

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Collecting art is prohibitive to most people, but Mont Art House tries to keep prices more manageable while also doing right by the artist.

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Consultant Sara Beck, a former art historian with the Menil Collection, describes her current role with Mont as “essentially a private shopper for art.” She helps bridge some of the communication gaps that impede many novice collectors from finding the pieces that best speak to them.

“Some galleries can be very intimidating. So it’s not easy to just walk into a white box gallery and know what you need to say in order to see the pieces that you like,” Beck says. “It’s not a super friendly environment all the time. It’s not very open or straightforward. It’s kind of mysterious. What we’re trying to do is be super friendly so nobody gets intimidated.”

Monteleone agrees. “We need art historians, but you shouldn’t have to be an art historian in order to acquire a piece of artwork. You shouldn’t have to know the vocabulary,” she says.

She also believes that some collectors don’t always understand everything that goes into creating an artwork.

“If you don’t appreciate the dollar that went into the canvas, how much the paint cost, that oil paint is more expensive than acrylic paint… Something that’s really technical might look really simple,” Monteleone points out. “Like a lot of geometric [works], those are really, really technical and really, really tedious. And it’s a simple image that comes out of it, but that took hours longer than some of the more abstract pieces.”

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The Mont Art House team, from left to right: gallery manager Bess Alford, lead consultant Sara Beck, owner Jennifer Monteleone, and inventory director Amanda Savoie.

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It isn’t just collectors who find the traditional fine art gallery system confusing. The artists themselves often face challenges in getting their names out and standing out in a crowded market.

Mont Art House currently represents 21 artists, all of whom work closely with Monteleone, Beck, and gallery manager Bess Alford to develop their professional presence and best reach potential buyers—including the freedom to set their own prices. The team can’t approve every applicant, but they do host special shows on occasion to feature artists whom they still believe deserve support. It’s another way to bring joy and expand opportunities for creators and collectors.

“In my experience, the most significant barrier to entry is finding someone who will give you a chance,” says oil painter and collage artist Louise Pennebaker. “With so many talented artists out there, applying to different exhibitions and galleries can oftentimes be discouraging. Working with Mont has given me the confidence to keep pushing when I have those inevitable moments of feeling discouraged.”

No matter one’s role in the arts, be it creative, consumer, or communicator, a little bit of education helps grow appreciation and understanding. Monteleone and her team consider Houston an especially ideal environment for accessible art. “We’re such a welcoming city,” she says.