Taking the Plunge

Buying your first painting? Annelien Bruins, coo of tang art advisory looks at seven ways an art advisor can help you.

Collecting art is very personal. Despite the interest in art investment, the use of art as a portfolio diversifier simply does not make sense for most people. Among others, you may not have the budget to buy investment-grade art or the cash to sit out the market cycle of this illiquid asset. Therefore, particularly when you start to collect, I recommend that you buy what you love. Ultimately you will have to live with your purchase and if you can’t see that happening, you should probably not buy it. That said, you can certainly be smart about buying art. If you don’t have the expertise yourself, engaging a professional art advisor is a prudent decision to make. Check out the seven ways an art advisor can help you purchase the right piece.

1 DOES YOUR LEGWORK

Despite the opacity of the art market, price comparables certainly exist. Databases of public auction records are available online (i.e. artnet.com) and will give you an idea of the value of artworks traded on the secondary market. That said, you probably won’t have the experience and knowledge to analyse the numbers correctly. Listings in price databases don’t provide the underlying reasons for a certain result achieved at auction, such as patchy provenance or condition issues. An art advisor will be able to make sense of the indices and also has access to insider information from galleries and auction houses allowing them to advise you on the appropriate price level for the artwork of your choice.

2 HELPS YOU DETERMINE YOUR TASTE IN ART