Art as an Investment

Farmer, have you read my link? Not to nag..

what about Charles Russell?

I have a bridge made out of tooth picks i'll sell you today only $ 2000.

Ah, Amigo and Husker, would you mind looking at my link?

Oh, ****. Stolen. The Getty. Kids go there on field trips.

In the interest of goodwill and reputation they should give the pieces back. At a price.

I'm pretty sure the CMRussell is not stolen.

I am presently more interested in the Getty than Russell, sorry Husker.

That charles russell paints a mean horse.

Art for investment is a game played by the extremely wealthy with paid consultants governing their purchases. The fact is that only 1% of art actually appreciates. Guess what the 99% usually does,

Antiques and antiquities generally do not depreciate and that is a problem. There seems to be an insatiable market for them. For archaeologists, such as myself, this is a problem as archaeological sites are often ransacked to get at saleable artifacts.

That is described in that Getty link.

My own view is that the Getty multimillions have been ill spent to purchase and house the products of ransacking (or ransacking to anyone without blinders on). I say this while I really like the Malibu antiquities museum as a building. I would have preferred that the Getty foundation or trust, whatever it is named, had supported world wide efforts to maintain heritage sites, perhaps to help fund local museums near the sites, and fund protection of the sites.

I'm aware Italy and I presume many other countries have been remiss in the protection.

The problem is that any where around the Mediterranean that you put a spade in the ground you are going to come up with something. There is at least 3000 years of civilization there. There is too much stuff to protect and not sufficient money to protect it. Many years ago I had student whose father worked for an American oil company in Libya (this was before they were thrown out) She described than experience as a young girl of walking through an abandoned Roman era village in the desert and finding a small coin lodged between the cobblestones of the street.

Further it is my opinion, and I'm in the minority on this, that selling antiquities to western (and non western) museums has a positive result. The artifacts and artwork spread the ideas and ideals of the cultures that created them. Hiding them all in the basement of some ministry of culture defeats their purpose. A regulated market that satisfies the needs of archaeologist, scholars, the country of origin and the antiques market would be preferable the the present system that is basically run by a black market.

You might think of the art objects and artifacts in museum as going about their business, We should let them get on with it.

I suppose the country of origin wants to keep their artifacts and art objects which are revealed in conscientious diggings but I think will always be a means to an end if they are installed in any museum around the world. All business is conducted in this manner and it's not always unfair. Essentially if it's proven that they Getty knew there could be some retribution but if they didn't know then let the pieces stay where they are.

Back to the subject which I know I've repeated myself, don't buy any art as an investment unless it's an investment in your soul. If by some providence some piece of art becomes worth so much it's a temptation to part with it to use the money elsewhere, so be it. To be foolish enough to try and plan it, caveat emptor.

The core stock of many of the larger museums were the personal collections of the founders of the museums. IN that case, its their skill at determining quality of work. Many of the old collectors like Guggenheim or Barnes, purchased their works from the artists . They were great patrons of the artists and , if not for the early collectors, many of these artists would just have faded away. A number of collectors (especially in antiques) got snookered quite deeply.
TheE I Dupont Silver collection, on display at Winterthur was always considered a "scholars reference collection" on Colonial and Federalist silver. As it turned out, due to a specific non destructive xray testing called "EDAX" that only became available in the 80's Dupont"s entire collection was called into question. It turned out that the metallurgy available to the colonail smiths didnt allow for the complete enrichment of silver. There was always a little of an amount of Nickle, copper and gold in the mix. Well, the EDAX showed that Duponts collection was almost 100% silver, a refining accomplishment that was not available till the early 20th century. So, it turned out, that over 85% of the famous Dupont silver collection is Fake.
Now the Winterthur Museum ( a very good museum science center and conservation lab) decided not to hide this. They put on a show of Famous Fakes and called the show "Art Forgery- Deception and Discovery". At this show they gathered many of the famous forgeries in antiques and art. (Most museums kept them hidden in the back so there was no problem gaining access and borrowing them).
The show included the fake William And MAry Pilgrim chair that was bought by the Ford Museum and was later found to be a fake. They had some very good pices of fake Taung dynasty, and Limoge , as well as AMerican ARts and Crafts pottery. They had fake doubloons and Roman coins.
It was quite a fest to see all the stuff that was being faked well.
They even had a few of the HAn van Meegeren fakes of Vermeers work that got Han almost executed by Nuremburg Tribunal. (Everyone thopught he was conspiring with the Nazis to sell national art treasures to Goering, when it turned out all he was doing was ripping Goering off by making fakes and selling them)
They had fake van Goghs by Otto Wacker and a few of Emir de Hory's Matisses.
The neat thing was that, in this show the museum gave away all thes ecrets of faking and how a conservation lab goes through the process of verification and it can still be fooled.
The show was on from 2000 till 2003 I believe.
Whike not a "blockbuster show" It drew the dealers, collectors and otherwise smug authorities to come and view how theyve all been snookered once or twice.
I think Winterthur published a book on the show, at least I hope they did.

LW, Whenever I buyart its only of stuff that Im sure of, and I only buy at auction. We have many auctions around us and Ive bought works of regionally important artists that were picked up dirt cheap. So even if Im snookered, I didnt get hosed too badly.
My recent Chris Shearer is authentic and is worth many times my purchase price because his auction records are quite strong.

Do artists come and go in favor? I dont mean the Monets but the regional artists.

Most auction houses try and keep their noses clean -- there are experts on their staffs which avoid selling anything inauthentic. The problem in reselling artwork is that very scenerio of going to auctions to get a bargain. So reselling your Chris Shearer and paying the percentage to an auction house or art broker may never get the right price.
There's a scarcity of consignment venues that can sell fine art and they take 50% of the selling price.
If one is actually in the gallery business they can have an edge in finding a piece at a low price and selling it at a high price, sometimes as much as ten times what they paid.

Artists do have their window of fame and popularity and in the commercial galleries they may be dropped out of inventory.

We just had a show with Grace Slick and it was only mildly successful. Her representatives keep her out of the secondary market but our regular clientele weren't the buyers. The heavy ad campaign brought in fans of Jefferson Airplane/Starship and they bought. I just won't sell anything as investment art even if I had an inkling it might be in that 1%. I'm repeating myself here -- buy it because you love the art, not for investment.

That was the Brewster chair. I met the guy that did this and he's a hoot, and a very good sculptor and designer. I also knew the guy he was trying to get. He was a curator at the Wadsworth Anthenaeum in Hartford and a friend of my fathers. It's a very interesting story of status, arrogance, jealousy, and revenge

I'm all for appropriate keepage and the educational and protective services thereof, from US museums. Am sure that much has survived only in that way. Still, I am not for ransackage silence. Any of you read all nine pages of that link I showed?

I well imagine there are defences. I am just not all so delighted with the scampering of objects.

Fakes can be beautiful and valid in there own way. I once worked for the Inst. of Fine Arts and became friends with a conservationist for the MMA. He showed me a room full of fakes. I know why it is wrong to pass off a modern work for an old one, but I would have loved to have possessed a few of those paintings or sculptures for my own. My favorite was a charming little Brueghel fake with a peasant couple cuddling in some hay. I would proudly hang it on my wall in a wink.

I also remember when a painting thought to be by Frans Hals was discovered to be by Judith Leyster. It was removed for a time from the exhibition hall. Later, after much debate, it was put back on display. The curators finally decided Leyster was just as good a painter as Hals. Sometimes value is in the eye of the beholder.

By the way, I was briefly one of those obnoxious sales people selling limited editions in the '80's. I worked for the Martin Lawrence Gallery (are they still around?) in SOHO and talked many a shopper into a "valuable limited edition print". I guess I will have to spend sometime in art purgatory for my sins.