Any interested person is able to buy and collect works of art. You don’t need to have any prior knowledge or extensive experience, much less any special education or academic degrees. All a true collector needs is a love for art, a passion for collecting and a willingness to learn a few simple principles that will allow you to correctly assess any piece of art from any historical period and from any national culture.
Keep in mind that there is no such thing as “false” or “true” art, just as there are no “right” or “wrong” ways of collecting. Simply put, you can collect and buy whatever you like based only on your own personal taste and financial possibilities. Therefore, the principles I offer are addressed only to those collectors who wish to spend their money wisely and prefer to invest it in works of art whose quality corresponds to their price. If you are one of these types of collectors, these guidelines will certainly help you. Read here about great offer.
Suppose you have a piece of art for sale that you are passionate about. It could be a painting, a sculpture, a print – it doesn’t matter. If you like the work so much that you’re ready to buy it, get ready to answer a number of questions before you make your final decision. These questions are as follows:
- Who is the artist?
- What is the significance of the particular work of art in the artist’s work?
- What is the provenance, history, and biography of the piece (in other words, where and when was it displayed, who owned it, and when)?
Who Is the Artist
To answer the first question, “Who is the artist?” you should always rely on two main sources of information – oral and written. An oral source of information can be the artist himself or the direct seller of the work – the gallery, dealer, owner of the work, just friends or acquaintances. Oral information can also come from other collectors or simply from people who are familiar with the artist’s work.
As for written information, you should look for it on the website of the artist himself or the gallery that represents him. You can also search other Internet sources, exhibition catalogs, artist’s CVs, reviews, publications, monographs, encyclopedias and dictionaries. Most often written information is also provided by the seller or dealer.
In any case, you will have to read about the artist and listen to the opinion of knowledgeable people. By comparing and contrasting all the information gathered, you can make a proper choice and form your own opinion about the significance of the artist of interest to you.
The purpose of all this information is very simple – to form a correct opinion about the artist. There’s nothing to do with the academic study of the artist. You just need to understand for yourself who the artist is and what his or her achievements are. The value of knowing how to gather the information you need increases as the price of the artwork in question increases. Simply put, the more expensive a work of art, the more respected, established and proven an artist should be.
The more widely the artist is represented on his own website, and in any other Internet resources, the better. Yes, an artist’s Internet site is important. However, much more important are websites where you can find reviews, reviews and articles about the artist you are interested in. The more prominent the publications and Internet sources that mention the artist’s name, the more significant and well-known the artist is likely to be. Five paragraphs in a well-known international catalog or dictionary means more than an article of the same size in a local publication or art catalog.
The more exhibitions, awards and other career accomplishments an artist has, the better. Keep in mind that pompous, bombastic and chaotic epithets about an artist, such as “magic strokes” or “brilliant combination of colors” may sound inspiring, but, more often than not, such “flowery” language of exaggeration can have no weight, unless the information is supported by at least some facts.
Significance of Particular Work
To understand how significant a particular work of art is in the artist’s work, you need to see as many of the artist’s works as possible. The better you know the artist’s work, the easier it will be for you to compare the thing that caught your eye with works typical of the artist, works that best characterize him.
Start by asking the artist himself or the person selling his work to show you a sampling of the artist’s work from all periods of his work – this could be photographs, a web page, reproductions or originals. If this is not possible, try to find out where and how you can view a range of works by the artist you are interested in. Knowing the full range of an artist’s work will give you a better understanding of the place of the piece you’ve chosen in their work.
Next, carefully examine the piece that caught your eye. In addition to the front of the painting examine the back, look at the sides and edges, check the condition of the frame, make sure there is a signature under the painting, and look for writing on the back of the painting. You may also find stamps, glued receipts, numbers, etc. Ask the seller or the artist himself to explain to you the provenance of any parts you find. Read more here.
The Provenance and Other
To find out the artwork’s provenance, history, and documentation, gather and collate all available information about the particular piece. This work is akin to what a writer does when gathering information before writing someone’s biography. You will have to gather all available information, from when the artist finished the painting to today.
This is worth doing, as fully documenting a painting or any other work of art, increases the collector’s value of the work and its marketability. A good provenance in the art world is akin to a good pedigree in dog breeding. A painting that has been exhibited in famous showrooms, for example, has a higher collector’s value than a similar work that has not been exhibited.
When you are ready to buy, make sure that you are given a receipt that includes a detailed description of the artwork that you are buying and its condition, and of course a money-back guarantee in case you find out later that the work has not been presented to you correctly. This receipt should be a necessary part of all the accompanying documentation that the dealer encloses with the artwork.
Final words
The whole process may seem grueling. But in practice, many collectors see the beauty of collecting exactly in the pre-purchase process. The thrill of the pre-purchase process is like a kind of adventure, especially when that skill becomes second nature to the collector. From the moment you begin to understand the inner workings of the process, your thirst for knowledge and the excitement of the hunter will make buying a piece of art a fascinating detective’s work. An experienced collector, which sooner or later you will be, will be able to evaluate and classify most works in some twenty, twenty-five minutes. For the experienced collector, mastery of all available information, including the correct appraisal of a work of art, can never be an afterthought.