Beginner’s Guide to Collecting Art For Fun and Profit

If you are an art lover, then collecting art is a natural inclination.  Having your favorite artwork nearby is inspiring.  But collecting art can be expensive.  With the expense in mind there is the possibility that you can find art that you love for a price that you can afford and it might even increase in value.

When it comes to collecting art the major consideration is whether you like the piece well enough to buy it.  Secondarily, can you afford or profit from a given work of art?  Those two groups of artworks can overlap.  You just need the knowledge and discipline to find the kind of art that satisfies both criteria.  So this article will offer you some knowledge that you can apply in satisfying both criteria.   Any successful art collector has used knowledge to find each piece of art in his/her collection. Here are some practical rules you can use.

1. Make a budget for buying art that does not challenge you financially.  You don’t need to add stress to your life to enjoy art.

2. Try to buy original works as opposed to multiples like prints or sculpture casting editions.  Originals have a greater possibility of increasing in value over time.

3. Do not buy art that you are not sure that you like.  Be patient and locate art that you are positive about.  There is little sense in feeling disappointed if you don’t grow to appreciate a piece that you didn’t feel strongly about.

4. Learn about the artist who has created the works you can appreciate.  Collect information about the artist’s work, his life, education, commitment to creating on a continuing basis, willingness to show his work at the highest levels available, degree of sophistication within his/her own type of art.  These efforts are indicators of an artist’s ability to become recognized in his/her work.

5. Realize that you do not necessarily have to pay the stated price.  You should be willing to negotiate with the artist or the dealer of the artist’s works.  Many sales are made at levels approaching 80%, and some as low as 50%.  Artists have been know to barter, accept services or goods in exchange for their work, as well.

6. Make sure that you understand how any purchase that you make must be maintained.  Is the art stable and solid, or does it need special support or display under glass?  Can it be handled easily for cleaning, or is so fragile that it could break?  Find out the permanence of the materials used, especially surface materials like paint or patina.  Realize that many works could support growth of mold, react chemically to some substances, or react poorly to sunlight or even low levels of artificial light.  You want as much stability, strength and permanence in artworks as possible.

7.  You can always consult experts before you buy a work of art.  There are professional appraisers available to authenticate work.  You can also ask other artists, an underutilized wealth of expertise as to the general qualities of  another artist’s works.  You can ask several people to examine a particular work to answer these questions.

Following these simple guidelines can make selection of original paintings, sculpture and other artworks a rewarding experience and a valuable pastime.

- Dan Ferris

Nonobjective Painter: LYNNE TAETZSCH

“While I found Joan Mitchell’s surfaces absolutely gorgeous, I had never known her work during my formative years as an art student. It was the male artists–Pollack, deKooning, Motherwell, Rothko–whose work had influenced me. I couldn’t leave them out to make a political statement. Their art spoke to me then. It speaks to me still.”  These words from abstract painter Lynne Taetzsch could be a capsulization of her development of style.  The visit to her website will be informative and exhilarating because of her nonobjective style.

Developmentally, Lynne has maintained the early strengths of her vision and then added repertoire to conceive an admirable body of work.  Her compositions contain energy and power, but also provide a cohesive framework for color passages that range from dazzling to subtly sensual.  She has a strength not seen in many of today’s painters, spontaneity.  Her spontaneity denies nothing of impulsivity, yet in her energetic openness she maintains resolve and decorum.  That kind of process is truly rewarding to the viewer when it has matured and manifested in a continuum of work.

Lynne works in acrylic paint on canvas.  She has probably contributed to the popularization of acrylics as a medium by new artists and those who explore in media generally.  Oil as a medium still has a strong place in the art world because of its distinct properties.  Acrylics distinctions are many, and Lynne uses most of them with real authority.

One of the best parts of visiting Lynne’s website and her blog is the amount of information and images you will find about her work and her life.  For a collector, student or writer this is actually a treasure by which an artistic career can be glimpsed.  Lynne has written some accounts of her life that add to this understanding, and in a retrospect view many conclusions can be drawn.  How this has added or subtracted from her body of work there may be no succinct answer, but her work stands as a pattern of trial and achievement of substantial and positive notoriety.

- Daniel Ferris

Four Nonobjective Painting Styles

In the world of abstract art there is an interesting subgroup of nonobjective painters.  These contemporary artists quite often have websites and/or exhibit their works on gallery websites.  Interested viewers can find many examples of these various styles.

The market for nonobjective work varies in relationship to representational art forms, but not as much as you might wonder.  And in the recent market we have seen major works of the established contemporary nonobjective artists go for record sums.  ArtFacts.net has a page that shows the cumulative record of known sales of major works.  You will see many contemporary artists, several of which are nonobjective painters.  Gerhard Richter comes in at #4 on their “TOP 100 Artist Ranking.”

Below I want to show some examples of recent works that definitely caught my eye, and then held it.  The artist’s name is under each image.

Bill Scott

James Brooks

Brad Bannister

Gerhard Richter

The variance in these styles is really only a smattering of what is available.  There is a real probability that many new styles will continue to evolve for nonobjective painting.  Check back for more on contemporary art.

- Daniel Ferris

Curators of Contemporary Art

Contemporary art is becoming more popular. Why is that?

I can’t say it’s because of our public schools educational regime of the last 20 years. I believe it has at least a little to do with the availability of the media to everyone – and indirectly a more sophisticated populace when it comes to images. More sophisticated in the sense that people see at least 10 times as many images as they did 30 or 40 years ago (rough guess).

Just think what could happen if the educational systems used the internet for something more than a reference sourc. The net could easily serve as a repository of each student’s work and progress, including standardized test preps, in almost every field of didactic learning. This goes double for the visual arts.

Here’s are some of the curators of galleries and museums that are particularly involved with the educational process:

Ellen Bradshaw of Pleiades Gallery
Connie Wolf of Contemporary Jewish Museum
Jason Hall of AAM

These people were interviewed by CAG but at this point I can only provide you with the links to their websites.  Each of these organizations is doing great work in the contemporary art community.  By the way, if you know of a curator or gallerist who would like to talk about contemporary art send them my way.

- Daniel Ferris

Abstract Artists – Nonobjective Paintings

There are many abstract painters on the contemporary art scene worldwide. If you would like to see their work you need only run a search to visit their websites. The abstract styles you can find are varied, and some are stylistically strong.

The nonobjective painters – a group within the abstract painters – are also well represented. Nonobjective painting is denoted by a complete lack of subject matter. In fact, in nonobjective painting, the abstraction is carried to an elemental degree so that only basic structures, forms, surface textural variation, color, transparency versus opacity, and usually with minimal patterning. Artists working in this way were called abstract expressionists for several decades, sometimes called action painters, particularly if they used active and spontaneous painting in the execution of the work.

These artists have some great canvases, and some interesting things to say as well. You can read about several of these journeyman artists at the articles, interviews and websites listed below.

Brad Bannister

Lynne Taetzsch

Shawn McNulty

Lorraine Huber

Anne Stahl

These artists provide a cross section of abstract painting in nonobjective style. When your read the interviews and various statements by these artists you will find the common theme of formal concern rather than pushing an agenda. The reason for this is simple, their only agenda is the formal execution of art, without other mitigating messages. And that is the real strength of nonobjective painting – it doesn’t drag in subjective dogma of meaning.

Critics today may compare nonobjective painting to eye candy. They said that about Monet too. But in the words of Pere Tanguy, “My God, What an Eye.” Now Monet’s paintings, in retrospect, evoke the words “ethereal” or “spiritual”. And nonobjective painting is a perceptual statement that frees the viewer. No preaching, no hand-wringing.

It can be much stronger than eye candy. Nonobjective painting can be more visually powerful than any other style because of this freedom. Granted, that kind of freedom is frightening to many people, who need a prescribed meaning to cling to. But to see a powerful, purely designed, spontaneously produced nonobjective painting is the equivalent of seeing human creativity at its zenith – seeing the unknown, mastery of chaos, attaining a pure balance between the complex and the simple.

- Daniel Ferris

Contemporary Art Gallery Interviews

One of the best ways to find out how things are going in the contemporary art market is to ask questions of the people who own and run contemporary art galleries. Of course galleries have their own areas of specialization or even niche marketing. So, the more people you talk to, the more answers you will get.

Artists, collectors and aspiring gallery owners need to understand the gallery market in contemporary art. The popularization of art fairs is only one trend that galleries deal with, often participating with their own artists. Another major trend is online websites, that have grown in number as artists, collectors, galleries and critics, have all made their entry into this newer medium.

I write and read on contemporary art because of business and personal interest, so any time I can get opinion from someone who is involved I like to pass it along to interested readers – artists, gallery owners, collectors and other writers. There were some very good interviews that offered interesting opinion on contemporary art gallery affairs listed here.  But CAG magazine closed so instead of the interview links I will provide links to these galleries with very informative websites below:

PAUL SHARPE – Chelsea, New York City
PETER STRUB of Marshall Arts Gallery
Painter and Gallerist – STELA BARRETO
Davidson Contemporary: MICHAEL SWENEY
Gallery Interview: TIMOTHY TEW
PAUL DORRELL Leopold Gallery Kansas City

These gallery owners and directors all have a take on contemporary art from their locale and market. Paul Sharpe, Peter Strub, Michael Sweney, Timothy Tew and Paul Dorrell have major input into their galleries as well as their local contemporary art markets.

If you have or know of a good gallery that specializes in contemporary art, and they would participate in an interview, please contact me. I am always interested in communicating with gallery owners and directors.

- Daniel Ferris

Contemporary Sculpture from CAG

Contemporary Art Gallery Magazine had some good reading for anyone interested in the area of contemporary sculpture.  The articles, mostly interviews of the sculptors also showed images of the works and some shots of the studio as well.  Since CAG’s closing I want to provide the names and links of those sculptors on “It’s Only Art?”.

Peter Reginato
Liisa Rahkonen
Todd Van Duren
Michael Binkley
Damon Hildreth
John Simms
Pekka Paikkari
Heidi Maiers

These sculptors work in a variety of media – steel, clay, stone, mosaic, aluminum, and wood.  While their sculptures run the gamut of styles you can see a real array of contemporary styles in living sculptors.  Whatever style of sculpture you enjoy you should be able to appreciate the creative products of these sculptors.

For a gallery magazine that was only for eighteen months CAG made sculpture a strong part of its focus.  Sculptor studios can be seen on almost all of these websites.  CAG believed that any gallery magazine should have a strong focus on sculpture and show the work of contemporary sculptors doing quality work as often as possible.  And with CAG, it showed.

- Daniel Ferris

Expressive Nonobjective Painters

Recently I have spoken with several gallery owners who claim they can only sell objective or figural work. Some of these galleries have standing in their respective communities, but claim people might look at somewhat abstracted paintings but that they cannot make sales with purely abstract or nonobjective paintings.

I cannot personally analyze whether this is a self-fulfilling prophesy on the part of the gallerists, but some of them do carry one or two nonobjective painters within those represented.  Other galleries claim to have no such problems and may even handle nonobjective painters predominantly. These two groups of galleries seem to be roughly equivalent in other factors. Why this happens I cannot say. I look at both types of painting with interest.

There are some excellent nonobjective painters out there to choose from. In fact I ran a quick survey and found six easily accessed websites that show some beautiful works.

Merlin Emrys
James Pearson
Brad Bannister
Rosetta DeBerardinis
Scott Foxx
David Tycho

Certainly every gallerist must have preferences, and I would be surprised if there weren’t some trends in the preferences of their clientele, but it will take some further analysis to determine the different demographics in these two groups.

There is a third group as well, those who show only nonobjective painters. My favorite gallery of this third group is Stephen Haller‘s gallery in Chelsea, NY.

If you know of a gallery that specializes in nonobjective painting and art please let me know by comment.

- Daniel Ferris

The Erotic Image – Concept and Pop Art

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then I will bet that eroticism is also in the eye of the beholder.  Erotic art has its artists, critics, students, collectors, and “lovers”.  To describe the range of  tastes, interests  and  definitions in erotic art you can surf the internet and briefly pick up on what I would have to call a vast diversity.

When you review what mainstream cultures have labelled as erotic art – as differentiated from other such labels as unerotic art, pornography, cultism, fetishism, blasphemy, etc – you find that it depends to whom, where and when you are talking to know what is erotic and permissable.

I recently wrote a piece on Nora Ness for Contemporary Art Gallery Magazine that provides a perfect example of what I consider erotic.  But at the rate that the internet is changing the cultural views worldwide there is a real possibility that what Nora is doing is not only erotic but also Performance Art and  Photography Art as well as Concept Art.  In only a week’s retrospection I would now  add  that Nora’s work is quickly becoming  Pop Art.

And one of the most interesting features about Nora Ness, besides her body and erotic expressivity, is that she is doing truly multimedia creative projects.  I believe her experimentation with backgrounds will drive her work even further – not only in strength of composition – into the Concept Art and Pop Art domains, simultaneously.  Artistic eroticism is nearly mainstream.  I personally hope Nora will put together a CD of her images and copyright them for sale. I think she is a pioneer.

- Daniel Ferris

Essays and Articles on Contemporary Art

I would like to mention that I have recently seen some good essays and articles written on contemporary art at the Art Now blog by Giselle Borzov.   In her article “Selling Art to Corporate Collections” she states, “Corporate collecting has changed over the last 30 years. Large corporations are still acquiring art but less so in recent years. Large corporations also tend to be more specialized in their selection process for both contemporary and older art.”

In another article, “Artist-Gallery Relationship” , Giselle states, “Aside from the exposure of shows and sales efforts made by a gallery representing any artist – galleries also have connections with museums, corporate collectors and other buying groups or individuals. Additionally, gallery affiliation can establish your secondary market identity and consequently stabilize your pricing and public identity.”

Giselle also does some great artist interviews with good examples of the artists works and links to their websites.  Take a look at the website and see what you think.

Daniel Ferris