Entry level: In art, trust your feelings

By Holly Hubbard Preston International Herald Tribune

SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2005


Art collectors are a trendy lot. As the famed art critic Robert Hughes once wrote: "Most of the time they buy what other people buy. They move in great schools, like bluefish, all identical. There is safety in numbers. If one wants Schnabel, they all want Schnabel."

What if you hate the work of Julian Schnabel, the postmodern painter-turned-filmmaker? Will not having one of his oversized paintings in your collection somehow diminish its overall value?

An art collection, by nature, should be a highly subjective possession. Heidi Neuhoff, an art dealer and gallery owner in Manhattan, said, "A collection should allow your own individuality to shine."

What if your individual tastes fall outside the current norm? Not to worry, said Neuhoff, who has 15 years of art world experience. Collectors who buy quality works at solid values usually get their day in the sun. She cited the case of one of her clients, a newly divorced woman looking to sell a sizable collection of contemporary Chinese art. "She and her former husband purchased a lot of Chinese art before it became the thing to look at," said the gallery owner. The client, who wants to diversify her collection, came to Neuhoff seeking to cash in on her portion of the Chinese collection. Her timing could not have been better. Demand for Chinese contemporary art is on the rise, allowing Neuhoff and the client to sell an estimated $300,000 worth of paintings at a healthy profit ranging from two to four times the original value of each individual work.

There is a lot of due diligence that should go into building a collection, no matter how eclectic or staid, voguish or contrarian. Every painting or sculpture that goes into a collection needs to be fully vetted in terms of the quality of the work and the value it has been assigned. While the quality component is going to be a subjective exercise, determining the valuation should be more straightforward, particularly if the artist has a track record, said Alan Bamberger, an art consultant and independent appraiser based in San Francisco.

Bamberger, who has spent 30 years appraising art collections for clients, begins his valuation process by determining the style, period, size, scarcity, and standing of the work. He will compare the work against that of other artists of the same school or period. There are several databases Bamberger uses that list prices for millions of fine art pieces sold at auction, including artprice.com, art-sales-index.com, and artnet.com.

Next, he will study the artist's accomplishments, including gallery and museum showings. Any legitimate gallery will have a statement or résumé about a featured artist beginning with where he or she attended art school to a breakdown of exhibits, Bamberger said. "Those are things you want to look at," he said. "You should see clear-cut progression of events - each subsequent event being equal to or greater than the one before - all of which are moving toward museums."

Still, don't let an artist's coming show mist your critical eye. As Bamberger noted, there is a lot of "gaming" that goes on when an artist is about to have a museum show. Prices for an artist can spike, Jennifer Roth, director of Sotheby's Arcade Fine Arts division in New York, said. She pointed to a rise in secondary prices for a number of 1970s American minimalist artists recently on exhibit at a New York contemporary art show.

Collectors should expect the valuation process to become more subjective and harder to critique when an artist "comes out of nowhere and creates whiplash in the art community," said Bamberger. "This is when prices become very speculative and you have to be really careful."

One final point on both value and quality: Know the condition of a painting or sculpture. According to Roth, Sotheby's "loves to sell things that are not in repaired condition." Works that have been touched up are less valuable, she said.

Collectors who follow these steps afford themselves a lot of flexibility in terms of future trades on their collections. The global art trade, in general, is a liquid world.

The Mei/Moses Fine Art Index, created by two professors at New York University, calculates that fine art sold at auction has outperformed stocks from 1953 to 2003: Art posted a compounded annual return of 12.6 percent, compared with 11.7 percent for the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

To get the full benefit of this liquidity, a collector might have to wait years to resell a work. Consumer demand for art runs in 20- to 30-year cycles, Roth said, citing that as the reason that sales of 19th-century European art are low and '70s minimalism is making a comeback.

Herein lies the opportunity for art lovers working to build a collection.

"There are speculative bubbles within an artist's career and the art world in general," Bamberger said.

One of the biggest speculative trends right now, Roth suggests, is the current run on Russian art.

Art collectors are a trendy lot. As the famed art critic Robert Hughes once wrote: "Most of the time they buy what other people buy. They move in great schools, like bluefish, all identical. There is safety in numbers. If one wants Schnabel, they all want Schnabel."

What if you hate the work of Julian Schnabel, the postmodern painter-turned-filmmaker? Will not having one of his oversized paintings in your collection somehow diminish its overall value?

An art collection, by nature, should be a highly subjective possession. Heidi Neuhoff, an art dealer and gallery owner in Manhattan, said, "A collection should allow your own individuality to shine."

What if your individual tastes fall outside the current norm? Not to worry, said Neuhoff, who has 15 years of art world experience. Collectors who buy quality works at solid values usually get their day in the sun. She cited the case of one of her clients, a newly divorced woman looking to sell a sizable collection of contemporary Chinese art. "She and her former husband purchased a lot of Chinese art before it became the thing to look at," said the gallery owner. The client, who wants to diversify her collection, came to Neuhoff seeking to cash in on her portion of the Chinese collection. Her timing could not have been better. Demand for Chinese contemporary art is on the rise, allowing Neuhoff and the client to sell an estimated $300,000 worth of paintings at a healthy profit ranging from two to four times the original value of each individual work.

There is a lot of due diligence that should go into building a collection, no matter how eclectic or staid, voguish or contrarian. Every painting or sculpture that goes into a collection needs to be fully vetted in terms of the quality of the work and the value it has been assigned. While the quality component is going to be a subjective exercise, determining the valuation should be more straightforward, particularly if the artist has a track record, said Alan Bamberger, an art consultant and independent appraiser based in San Francisco.

Bamberger, who has spent 30 years appraising art collections for clients, begins his valuation process by determining the style, period, size, scarcity, and standing of the work. He will compare the work against that of other artists of the same school or period. There are several databases Bamberger uses that list prices for millions of fine art pieces sold at auction, including artprice.com, art-sales-index.com, and artnet.com.

Next, he will study the artist's accomplishments, including gallery and museum showings. Any legitimate gallery will have a statement or résumé about a featured artist beginning with where he or she attended art school to a breakdown of exhibits, Bamberger said. "Those are things you want to look at," he said. "You should see clear-cut progression of events - each subsequent event being equal to or greater than the one before - all of which are moving toward museums."

Still, don't let an artist's coming show mist your critical eye. As Bamberger noted, there is a lot of "gaming" that goes on when an artist is about to have a museum show. Prices for an artist can spike, Jennifer Roth, director of Sotheby's Arcade Fine Arts division in New York, said. She pointed to a rise in secondary prices for a number of 1970s American minimalist artists recently on exhibit at a New York contemporary art show.

Collectors should expect the valuation process to become more subjective and harder to critique when an artist "comes out of nowhere and creates whiplash in the art community," said Bamberger. "This is when prices become very speculative and you have to be really careful."

One final point on both value and quality: Know the condition of a painting or sculpture. According to Roth, Sotheby's "loves to sell things that are not in repaired condition." Works that have been touched up are less valuable, she said.

Collectors who follow these steps afford themselves a lot of flexibility in terms of future trades on their collections. The global art trade, in general, is a liquid world.

The Mei/Moses Fine Art Index, created by two professors at New York University, calculates that fine art sold at auction has outperformed stocks from 1953 to 2003: Art posted a compounded annual return of 12.6 percent, compared with 11.7 percent for the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

To get the full benefit of this liquidity, a collector might have to wait years to resell a work. Consumer demand for art runs in 20- to 30-year cycles, Roth said, citing that as the reason that sales of 19th-century European art are low and '70s minimalism is making a comeback.

Herein lies the opportunity for art lovers working to build a collection.

"There are speculative bubbles within an artist's career and the art world in general," Bamberger said.

One of the biggest speculative trends right now, Roth suggests, is the current run on Russian art.

Art collectors are a trendy lot. As the famed art critic Robert Hughes once wrote: "Most of the time they buy what other people buy. They move in great schools, like bluefish, all identical. There is safety in numbers. If one wants Schnabel, they all want Schnabel."

What if you hate the work of Julian Schnabel, the postmodern painter-turned-filmmaker? Will not having one of his oversized paintings in your collection somehow diminish its overall value?

An art collection, by nature, should be a highly subjective possession. Heidi Neuhoff, an art dealer and gallery owner in Manhattan, said, "A collection should allow your own individuality to shine."

What if your individual tastes fall outside the current norm? Not to worry, said Neuhoff, who has 15 years of art world experience. Collectors who buy quality works at solid values usually get their day in the sun. She cited the case of one of her clients, a newly divorced woman looking to sell a sizable collection of contemporary Chinese art. "She and her former husband purchased a lot of Chinese art before it became the thing to look at," said the gallery owner. The client, who wants to diversify her collection, came to Neuhoff seeking to cash in on her portion of the Chinese collection. Her timing could not have been better. Demand for Chinese contemporary art is on the rise, allowing Neuhoff and the client to sell an estimated $300,000 worth of paintings at a healthy profit ranging from two to four times the original value of each individual work.

There is a lot of due diligence that should go into building a collection, no matter how eclectic or staid, voguish or contrarian. Every painting or sculpture that goes into a collection needs to be fully vetted in terms of the quality of the work and the value it has been assigned. While the quality component is going to be a subjective exercise, determining the valuation should be more straightforward, particularly if the artist has a track record, said Alan Bamberger, an art consultant and independent appraiser based in San Francisco.

Bamberger, who has spent 30 years appraising art collections for clients, begins his valuation process by determining the style, period, size, scarcity, and standing of the work. He will compare the work against that of other artists of the same school or period. There are several databases Bamberger uses that list prices for millions of fine art pieces sold at auction, including artprice.com, art-sales-index.com, and artnet.com.

Next, he will study the artist's accomplishments, including gallery and museum showings. Any legitimate gallery will have a statement or résumé about a featured artist beginning with where he or she attended art school to a breakdown of exhibits, Bamberger said. "Those are things you want to look at," he said. "You should see clear-cut progression of events - each subsequent event being equal to or greater than the one before - all of which are moving toward museums."

Still, don't let an artist's coming show mist your critical eye. As Bamberger noted, there is a lot of "gaming" that goes on when an artist is about to have a museum show. Prices for an artist can spike, Jennifer Roth, director of Sotheby's Arcade Fine Arts division in New York, said. She pointed to a rise in secondary prices for a number of 1970s American minimalist artists recently on exhibit at a New York contemporary art show.

Collectors should expect the valuation process to become more subjective and harder to critique when an artist "comes out of nowhere and creates whiplash in the art community," said Bamberger. "This is when prices become very speculative and you have to be really careful."

One final point on both value and quality: Know the condition of a painting or sculpture. According to Roth, Sotheby's "loves to sell things that are not in repaired condition." Works that have been touched up are less valuable, she said.

Collectors who follow these steps afford themselves a lot of flexibility in terms of future trades on their collections. The global art trade, in general, is a liquid world.

The Mei/Moses Fine Art Index, created by two professors at New York University, calculates that fine art sold at auction has outperformed stocks from 1953 to 2003: Art posted a compounded annual return of 12.6 percent, compared with 11.7 percent for the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

To get the full benefit of this liquidity, a collector might have to wait years to resell a work. Consumer demand for art runs in 20- to 30-year cycles, Roth said, citing that as the reason that sales of 19th-century European art are low and '70s minimalism is making a comeback.

Herein lies the opportunity for art lovers working to build a collection.

"There are speculative bubbles within an artist's career and the art world in general," Bamberger said.

One of the biggest speculative trends right now, Roth suggests, is the current run on Russian art.

Art collectors are a trendy lot. As the famed art critic Robert Hughes once wrote: "Most of the time they buy what other people buy. They move in great schools, like bluefish, all identical. There is safety in numbers. If one wants Schnabel, they all want Schnabel."

What if you hate the work of Julian Schnabel, the postmodern painter-turned-filmmaker? Will not having one of his oversized paintings in your collection somehow diminish its overall value?

An art collection, by nature, should be a highly subjective possession. Heidi Neuhoff, an art dealer and gallery owner in Manhattan, said, "A collection should allow your own individuality to shine."

What if your individual tastes fall outside the current norm? Not to worry, said Neuhoff, who has 15 years of art world experience. Collectors who buy quality works at solid values usually get their day in the sun. She cited the case of one of her clients, a newly divorced woman looking to sell a sizable collection of contemporary Chinese art. "She and her former husband purchased a lot of Chinese art before it became the thing to look at," said the gallery owner. The client, who wants to diversify her collection, came to Neuhoff seeking to cash in on her portion of the Chinese collection. Her timing could not have been better. Demand for Chinese contemporary art is on the rise, allowing Neuhoff and the client to sell an estimated $300,000 worth of paintings at a healthy profit ranging from two to four times the original value of each individual work.

There is a lot of due diligence that should go into building a collection, no matter how eclectic or staid, voguish or contrarian. Every painting or sculpture that goes into a collection needs to be fully vetted in terms of the quality of the work and the value it has been assigned. While the quality component is going to be a subjective exercise, determining the valuation should be more straightforward, particularly if the artist has a track record, said Alan Bamberger, an art consultant and independent appraiser based in San Francisco.

Bamberger, who has spent 30 years appraising art collections for clients, begins his valuation process by determining the style, period, size, scarcity, and standing of the work. He will compare the work against that of other artists of the same school or period. There are several databases Bamberger uses that list prices for millions of fine art pieces sold at auction, including artprice.com, art-sales-index.com, and artnet.com.

Next, he will study the artist's accomplishments, including gallery and museum showings. Any legitimate gallery will have a statement or résumé about a featured artist beginning with where he or she attended art school to a breakdown of exhibits, Bamberger said. "Those are things you want to look at," he said. "You should see clear-cut progression of events - each subsequent event being equal to or greater than the one before - all of which are moving toward museums."

Still, don't let an artist's coming show mist your critical eye. As Bamberger noted, there is a lot of "gaming" that goes on when an artist is about to have a museum show. Prices for an artist can spike, Jennifer Roth, director of Sotheby's Arcade Fine Arts division in New York, said. She pointed to a rise in secondary prices for a number of 1970s American minimalist artists recently on exhibit at a New York contemporary art show.

Collectors should expect the valuation process to become more subjective and harder to critique when an artist "comes out of nowhere and creates whiplash in the art community," said Bamberger. "This is when prices become very speculative and you have to be really careful."

One final point on both value and quality: Know the condition of a painting or sculpture. According to Roth, Sotheby's "loves to sell things that are not in repaired condition." Works that have been touched up are less valuable, she said.

Collectors who follow these steps afford themselves a lot of flexibility in terms of future trades on their collections. The global art trade, in general, is a liquid world.

The Mei/Moses Fine Art Index, created by two professors at New York University, calculates that fine art sold at auction has outperformed stocks from 1953 to 2003: Art posted a compounded annual return of 12.6 percent, compared with 11.7 percent for the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

To get the full benefit of this liquidity, a collector might have to wait years to resell a work. Consumer demand for art runs in 20- to 30-year cycles, Roth said, citing that as the reason that sales of 19th-century European art are low and '70s minimalism is making a comeback.

Herein lies the opportunity for art lovers working to build a collection.

"There are speculative bubbles within an artist's career and the art world in general," Bamberger said.

One of the biggest speculative trends right now, Roth suggests, is the current run on Russian art.