Is anyone here investing in art? I've just started and similar to buying PMs, it becomes addictive quick and money gets spent rapidly.
I had a painting bequeathed to me. A NZ landscape piece from the mid 1800s. Worth 5-10K, but would never sell it.
I have a handful of Picasso's (yes really), but none of them are oils. My real fetish is semi-modern Asian ceramics (yes, no shit again) - or more precisely one particular niche market of Asian ceramics.
Have been looking at this space recently myself, lots of aussie art out there, picking the artist,niche and period is key
I looked at it a while ago. Wanted an artist who was old, well known and likely to die in the relative near future. Decided on Rolf Harris - now look at what he's gone and done!
Ha that's great. Is there any value in his infamy? If mein kampf can still be getting printed then infamy counts for heaps. Then again, killing millions of people is probably better than touching kids or whatever old mate Rolf did.
I've recently gotten interested in religious prints by the Jewish artist Hermann Fechenbach (http://www.hermannfechenbach.com/) and the Mexican print artist Jos Guadalupe Posada (http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-calaveras-of-jose-guadalupe-posada/ most famous for his political art and turning politicians into Day of the Dead skeletons/sugar skulls). These are more for collecting and display not investing but I still like it. I am also commissioning a prominent local painter to do a graduation portrait of my wife since she will be graduating with her master's degree from Johns Hopkins this month (http://patrickkluga.com/). I have a few interesting Dutch oils from the 19th cen. as well as some interesting bronzes. Again not so much as an investment but because I liked the subject matter.
Honestly, oils don't really go well in the Bentley anyway. A few sketches for the chaps to peruse is the better choice. I was with you up until "ceramics".
I have some paintings up around the place, Gloria Petyarre, Louise Numina, Koonarang Nunuccal, Abie Loy Kemarre, Mitjili Napurrula and a few odds and ends. There doesn't seem to be much interest abroad for the paintings and there are so many over here that I don't think of them as an investment, just something nice to look at on the wall. I would like to get hold of some pochoir paintings of the Blue Mountains by Mel Jones but that would involve tracking them down and I think she has moved on to other subjects now. You can probably make a bit of money doing it but you would need to really be in to it, not just taking advice from a gallery owner or going on personal preference. I did look into buying art and then leasing it to companies wanting to put it up in their offices but I am not sure that anyone would bother renting art, it is cheap enough as it is.
I heard that aboriginal paintings are getting more and more interest overseas...art is nice to look at but when-if-the sh@t comes what are you gonna do with it?
Every now-and-then there is a trip over to Europe with some aboriginal art and it goes down well at the time but the acrylics painted on canvas in every colour under the Sun and reproduced over and over again is not what they are looking for overseas. They want the earth tones on wood bark, or woven baskets from native plants that don't actually hold anything. For fun, every time we go to Sydney we pop into the art shops around the tourist areas and look at what is available. There is alway Gloria Petyarre in whatever size and colour combination you want, and if they don't have it, just go to the one next door. Anyway, when I first went back in 2005 the Petyarre and Mitjili's were all going for $10,000 (I got smaller versions from ebay for about $200) went back this year and you can pick up the same things for $5,000. Maybe they have saturated the markets or maybe the tourists don't have so much to spend or maybe art in general is not doing so well but if you were buying as an investment you would be in a bad mood, might as well have wasted your money on silver. I intend to enjoy life until the SHTF, after all, it may never actually happen. In which case being surrounded by nice things will be better than constantly living in fear of something bad happening. I haven't spent a lot of money on canvases so I could happily walk away from them, the walls on which they are hanging are worth far more value.
I have a friend who is an artist in Adelaide, I'm happy she's not that well known because it means I can still afford to buy her work.
Tomorrow I'm picking up a 5ft tall painting of Chrissie Amphlett in her most famous position Pulling her skirt up I'll post pics as soon as I get her home Last sold at auction in 1992 for $2500 Can't remember the artist
Me too actually, Are they the Heliograuves? I got 4 of them a while back, done some swaps and other BS but still own Two, with others in the family. I will probably be selling them in next few years though. while still free money for rich people can inflate the price more
I seen her (Divinyls) play at the Palais Theatre in St Kilda in late 90s when I was in my 20s. I remember she was being dirty on stage! She looks Japanese in that painting.