Look for "desperate and cheap"

My good friend, Tony Moffitt on his blog

http://tonymoffitt.blogspot.com/ makes some very good points about ways artists should follow to improve their chances to sell their work.

As with every investment, if you want to be successful when investing in art, invest in someone who looks desperate an cheap.

Look for people with plenty of art and even more advertising on their blogs.

Desperate means that person is putting a lot of effort into selling his work.

Cheap means you are in for a bargain.

These are people where you should buy in bulk. The more you buy from them, the more other people start seeing them take off and the ball starts rolling.

With people that look confident and expensive, no such luck.

Ever.

Fake! - Four Corners

Little Cezanne doodle - Stefan Maguran
This post follows the Four Corners investigation on fakes aired on 8 June.
The transcript can be read here:
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2009/s2592390.htm
With an estimated 10% of the art offered for sale being fakes, it is very important for the art collector to be very cautious when buying art. Provenance is the magic word here.
In future posts I will talk to you about this in more detail.
The bottom line is that if you think you'll make lots of money buying big names, you are sadly mistaken.
Look for emerging artists. And be a winner.

The simple truth

Wherever you live, you must have at least three walls (as one court ruling indicates in a well documented case in Nimbun).

The picture above is one example of what you could buy to put on your walls. You could buy this kind of picture from the many shops that sell frames and framed prints, or you could make your own.

From a financial perspective, investing in such an object is a liability.

It takes valuable space where you could display a true investment, it locks in cash (if you have no debts), it drains your money if you have borrowed money to purchase it.

On the other hand, if you purchase a painting with the same subject matter from an emerging artist, you would most likely pay the same kind of money, but get a real investment, if you know how to pick the right artist.

Picking the right emerging artist is what galleries do. To be a successful art collector, you need to beat the galleries at their own game.

Next month I will give you some simple suggestions on how to do just that.