Every template on this page is designed and maintained in-house by uiCookies, so these are our own artist portfolios rather than a list of links to other people's themes. There are three: Gesso for painters and fine artists who sell originals and prints, Linework for illustrators who take commissions, and Atelier, a Bootstrap 6 portfolio for designers and freelancers who need to explain a project as well as show it.
An artist's website has one main job: show the work well and make it easy to ask about it. That means images at their own proportions rather than cropped into identical squares, captions that tell a collector the title, medium, size and whether a piece is still available, and a short route from any work to an enquiry. Around the work, visitors look for a biography or statement, a record of exhibitions or clients, and a sign of what comes next, whether that is a show, a print release or a gap in the commission calendar. All of it has to read cleanly on a phone, where many people first follow a link to an artist's site.
These are static HTML templates, not WordPress themes, so there is no CMS or database: you edit the HTML files, swap in photographs of your own work and upload the folder to any static host. Gesso and Linework run on Bootstrap 5 with vanilla JavaScript and no jQuery; Atelier runs on Bootstrap 6, which is still in alpha. All three are free for personal and commercial use, including client work, and attribution is optional but always welcome, so the footer credit can stay or go; the full terms are at uicookies.com/license. Enquiry, commission and contact forms validate in the browser but send nothing until you connect them to a form service or backend.
The templates
Gesso
Gesso is a four-page portfolio for painters and fine artists, shown as the site of a fictional painter in Maine. The home page opens on a full-bleed painting with a museum-style wall label, then moves through a salon hang of selected works, the current series, an upcoming exhibition, a studio statement and a newsletter sign-up. A works page filters twelve paintings by series, medium, year and availability in a masonry layout, the about page holds a biography, artist statement and printable CV, and the shop lists originals and limited edition prints beside an enquiry and commission form.
Every work carries a wall label and a red-dot marker for available, sold or on loan, and opens in a native dialog lightbox with its dimensions, availability and price. Enquire buttons prefill the form with the painting, the enquiry type and a matching budget range. Built on Bootstrap 5 with vanilla JavaScript and no jQuery.
Linework
Linework is built for illustrators and graphic artists, around a fictional studio that draws editorial pieces, book covers, characters and murals. Across three pages it gives you a home page with a large illustrated hero, selected projects, client wordmarks, services with starting prices, a brief-sketches-final process strip and a testimonial; a projects page with a discipline filter and nine case-study dialogs; and a commissions page with a three-month availability calendar, a brief form with reference uploads, a shop strip for prints, a zine and stickers, and an FAQ.
Nearly all of the demo artwork is original inline SVG, and each piece can switch to a blue-pencil sketch version, so every case study shows the rough, the final and an in-use mock-up. The palette's custom properties recolour the illustrations too. Built on Bootstrap 5 with vanilla JavaScript and no jQuery.
Atelier
Atelier suits designers, developers and freelancers more than painters: a two-page portfolio whose landing page covers selected work, about, skills, an experience timeline, writing and contact, and whose second page is a full case study layout with prose typography, result metrics and a sticky summary rail. It fits a creative whose client projects need explaining rather than just hanging on a wall. The contact form goes further than most, with a Combobox for project type, a Datepicker for the start date and a Range slider with a live value bubble for budget.
The whole template rethemes from a single –brand token, and full dark mode is remembered across visits. It runs on Bootstrap 6, which has not been released and is still changing; the framework is vendored at a pinned build and targets evergreen browsers only. ESM-only vanilla JavaScript, no jQuery.
Compare at a glance
| Template | Best for | Pages | Standout feature |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gesso | Painters selling originals and prints | 4 | Enquiry form prefilled from the chosen painting |
| Linework | Illustrators taking commissions | 3 | Case studies with rough, final and mock-up |
| Atelier | Designers and freelance creatives | 2 | Case study page and Bootstrap 6 contact form |
How to choose
Choose by the kind of work you make and how people come to buy it. If you paint and sell originals or editions directly, Gesso is built around that: wall labels, availability dots, a filterable works page, an exhibition block, a printable CV and a shop with prints and commissions. Illustrators who work to a brief will get more from Linework, whose case studies walk a project from brief to final and whose commissions page shows open dates and collects references with the brief. Atelier is the one for designers, developers and multidisciplinary freelancers who write about process and results, but it runs on Bootstrap 6 alpha and supports only evergreen browsers (Safari 16.4+, Chrome 111+ and Firefox 113+), so weigh that before building a site you plan to keep for years.
If you arrived looking for a WordPress theme for painters, these are static HTML templates rather than WordPress themes. There is no CMS dashboard or database: you add a painting by copying a block in the HTML and editing its details, then upload the folder to a static host. That means no plugins to manage, but changing content means editing files rather than logging in. Gesso keeps this manageable, because each artwork holds its title, year, series, medium, size, status and price as data attributes, and the filters, lightbox and enquiry prefill all read from them, so no JavaScript needs editing.
Frequently asked questions
Can I sell paintings and prints directly from these templates?
Gesso's shop presents originals and limited edition prints in frame mock-ups, with size options that update the price and edition counters, and it routes buyers to an enquiry form. Linework has a shop strip for prints, a zine and stickers with a small demo bag. Neither template processes payments, so link the buttons to your own shop or payment provider, or handle sales through enquiries.
Do the enquiry and commission forms send me an email?
Not on their own. Gesso's enquiry and newsletter forms and Linework's commission brief validate in the browser and show a confirmation, and in Linework the reference files stay on the visitor's device. Connect the forms to a form service or your own backend before launch so enquiries reach your inbox.
How do I add my own paintings or illustrations?
In Gesso, copy an artwork block in works.html and change its image and data attributes; the demo paintings are public domain, with provenance listed in CREDITS.txt, so replace them with photographs of your own work. In Linework, swap an SVG block for an img tag pointing at your own JPG or PNG, or add your drawing as a new symbol in the SVG sprite at the top of the page.
Can visitors add my next exhibition to their calendar?
Yes, in Gesso. The upcoming exhibition block on the home page has an add-to-calendar button that builds an .ics file in the browser, so there is nothing to host. Linework takes a different angle on dates, with an availability calendar for the current month and the next two that shows clients when you are open for commissions.
Can a gallery or a web designer use these for a client's artist site?
Yes. All three templates are free for personal and commercial use, including sites built for clients or for a gallery's represented artist. Attribution is optional but always welcome, so the footer credit can be kept or removed; the full terms are at uicookies.com/license.
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