If starting an art collection is among your New Year resolutions, Wall Street Journal has offered 10 tips to set you on the right road. Look at the list and share your thoughts with us in the comments section! Then take a peek at Vedere's wide array of art pieces from all around the world and build your collection with us!
1. Despite all the hype about art as a safe asset class, don't consider a collection primarily as an investment. The art market isn't the stock market, where you can easily buy and sell. Art doesn't supply dividends or earn interest, and selling with a gain is far from a sure thing.
2. Buy what you like, not fashionable status symbols. You have to live with the works; their dividends should be the pleasure of looking at them.
3. Do your homework by visiting galleries and studying auctions. Fairs are the way to compare a wealth of galleries under one roof. Auctions are transparent, providing collectors with benchmark prices that serve as a guide to how much collectors should be paying. Auction houses provide an enormous amount of price information on their websites.
4. Contemporary art galleries build up new artists who only appear at auction later. So roaming the galleries is the way to pick up emerging talent. Getting to meet both established and young artists is one of the joys of collecting contemporary art, and that is done through galleries.
5. There's an excitement in buying at auction, where enthusiasts compete against one another. But beware of auction fever when heated bidding can push prices to crazy levels. Set a maximum above which you will not go, and stick to it. This limit should take into account costs on top of the price at which a piece is hammered down. They include buyer's premium (commission paid to auction house) and, in many countries, a royalty for the artist's resale right. Always check the condition of your desired piece. I neglected to do this once, and consequently paid handsomely for its restoration.
6. Before buying think of where you will place the piece so that it has maximum effect. Art is made to be seen and not to end up in the garage. You can mix styles, eras and regions, but the pieces must speak to each other.
7. A mistake often made by new collectors when starting out is in buying too much. It is better to move slowly so as to build a quality, rather than a large collection.
8.Works on paper are a common route for beginners. Limited-edition prints and multiple objects are a way of owning a work by a famous artist you like at a reasonable price. Christie's Paris on Thursday will offer colorful, abstract prints by Sonia Delaunay from 1969-71 (estimates between €500 and €2,000). Drawings, watercolors and other unique works on paper are also a promising starting point. There are striking pieces in Christie's Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper auction in London on Feb. 8. Delaunay's bright, geometric gouache, watercolor and black crayon "Rythme couleur, Paris" (1966) is estimated at £20,000-£30,000; carrying the same estimate will be Otto Freundlich's cheerful pastel "Cosmic Rainbow" (1922). Joan Miró's gouache, pastel, collage, pen and pencil over a printed base "Maquette for Gaudí XV" (1975) is expected to fetch £25,000-£35,000.
9. Photo art also provides an affordable start. The big names, such as Andreas Gursky, can sell in the millions, but there are a range of photographers today in many countries that have reasonable prices and produce superb images. Any beginner should look at the photo-art talent that surrounds us everywhere.
10. Be prepared to hang onto the art you buy for some time. One of the major selling points for any work at auction is that it is fresh to the market. Buying today and selling tomorrow is out.
