Art Collecting 101: Introduction

Once upon a time, Hugh Grant’s reputation may have been tarnished by a certain not-so-Divine Ms. Brown. What he needed, was a red herring to shift the spotlight away from this peculiar saga. Thanks to a fling with Elizabeth Taylor while soaked up in drunken stupor one evening, he got his wish.

I’m referring to the Andy Warhol painting of Ms. Taylor that Grant sold after a 6 year embrace. No more the foolish cad with very unconventional taste, say hello to the £11million richer art connoisseur!

Investing in or collecting Art, is as much of an art as the Art itself.

Luck, timing, perception, strategy are elements of a game to which we sometimes have little control over. Quoi de neuf. Unless you had every one of your tentacles dipped in every social directory of every industry.

That said, to start off with, there are two things we, as budding collectors can do, to mitigate any unintended consequences of our ignorance:

1. Tree of Knowledge

Research, read, remember. As with most investments in our neo-liberal capitalist world, you can never acquire too much knowledge about the commodity you wish to invest in.

Remember: The search is NEVER over.

2. Fall in Love

Ditch ye olde Wall Street adage. Unlike stocks, bonds and most other non-aesthetic financial products currently in existence, you SHOULD fall in love with your art investments.

I know of collectors whose art investment holding periods lasted longer than their marriages. Patience is surely a virtue, as art is a long-term investment.

But that does not mean that you need to deprive your eyes of aesthetics, your soul of metaphysical experience, nor your mind of thought-provoking intelligence.

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 thangdynasty is a work-in-progress maintained by an accidental equity trader whose brief foray into the world of investments turned out… not so brief. Although unmotivated by the senseless pursuit of money in and for itself, she remains sadistically intrigued by the complex anatomy stealthily at work behind the whole spectrum of Markets – Fine Art, Financial, Fish and Fools. A budding art collector and supporter of emerging artists, she slogs to prevent collateral damage to her bank account resulting from occasional manic art buying sprees.

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