How to collect art like a pro

Alan Bamberger on building an art collection

Alan Bamberger, based in San Francisco, is a well-known independent arts consultant and writer. His many articles at ArtBusiness.com cover every aspect of collecting art, and Bamberger’s professional services include analyzing strategies for collecting and assisting artists in writing successful statements. In November he spoke with me via telephone and shared some of his insights. Using quilts as an example, Bamberger posed this very telling question to ask oneself when considering the purchase of a piece: “Why should I care? Yes, it’s a quilt, but it’s more—a work of art indicating the artist’s ability to materialize an artistic vision. And does it make me see life differently?”

Bamberger recently published the second edition of his book The Art of Buying Art, which I can recommend to anyone in the process of building a collection. His advice is to the point and clearly written, as if he is talking to the reader. The book, which costs $24.95, is available at http:// artbusiness.com/bookorder.html. by Sandra Sider

This lecture is an abbreviated version of a speech originally given by Alan Bamberger to the Friends of the Mint at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina. The entire lecture is available at http://artbusiness.com/collectpro.html How to collect art like a pro

In order to collect art intelligently, you have to master two basic skills. The first is being able to effectively research, evaluate, and buy any single work of art that attracts you. The second is being able to choose each individual work in such a way as to form a meaningful grouping, a practice more commonly known as collecting.

If you’re like most people, you know how to buy art on a pieceby-piece basis, but may not be all that accomplished at formulating a plan for making multiple acquisitions over the long haul, or in other words, building a collection. You can find art you like just about anywhere you look and in an incredible variety of subject matters, mediums, and price ranges, but that can be confusing as well as intimidating. So how do you wade through it all and decide what direction to go in? How do you relate one purchase to the next? How do you organize or group your art together? How do you present it? And most importantly, how do you do all these things well? This is what collecting is all about; it’s the ultimate case of controlled purposeful buying.

What makes a great collector great is his or her ability to separate out specific works of art from the millions of pieces already in existence and assemble them in such a way as to increase or advance our understanding of that art in particular or of the evolution of art in general. In any mature collection, the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts, the collector comes to be accepted as a respected authority and in exceptional cases, goes on to set the standards, determine the trends, and influence the future of collecting for everyone.

Regardless of how you view your collecting, whether serious or recreational, there are techniques that you can use to maximize

not only the quality and value of your art, but also your own personal enjoyment, appreciation, and understanding of that art. Step one is being true to your tastes. This means acknowledging that you like certain types of art regardless of what you think you’re supposed to like or what seems to be the current rage. All great collectors share this trait; that’s one thing that makes their collections stand out. When personal preference is ignored in favor of the status quo, one collection begins to look just like the next. A few people dictate, the masses follow, everyone walks in lockstep, and the art you see from collection to collection becomes boring and repetitive.

You may or may not be well along in your collecting, but if you have any nagging doubts about what you’ve been buying, what you’ve deliberately avoided, whether you’re totally satisfied or you just want to take a moment to see what’s new, suspend your buying for a bit and take a look around. Don’t confine yourself to the same old museums or galleries or wherever you’ve been looking at art. Get out there and see what else is going on.

Hand in hand with knowing the art goes knowing the marketplace—and this is where many collectors fall short. The great collectors know just about everyone who sells what they collect; they’re on top of the market and the market knows them. They’re tuned in to the late-breaking news and when something exciting is about to happen, they’re usually among the first to find out about it. The top collectors go to great lengths to scoop the competition when the best art comes up for sale because it doesn’t come up all that often. They also know how to compare and contrast what dealers offer them in order to assure that something is as good as they’re led to believe it is.

Regarding the art that does make it into your collection, most novice collectors will tell you that they buy what they like. That’s definitely the best way to buy, but as you gain experience, the reasons why you buy what you like should become increasingly more conscious, complex, sophisticated, and purposeful. For example, you might hear an advanced collector say something like, “Not only do I love this sculpture, but it’s also a prime example of the artist’s best subject matter dating from his most productive time period and it fills a major gap in my collection.”

The best collectors show this sense of sureness and direction in their overall plans. And here’s where we get into the essence of collecting, of what distinguishes a superior collection from an inferior one. In a superior collection, every piece belongs; nothing is random or arbitrary. A less experienced collector, on the other hand, may know plenty about each individual piece of art, but lack an overall understanding of how they work together or even if they work together. “What’s all this art doing in my house at the same time? I really don’t know. I’m not quite sure.”

Pose your problem as soon as you can. Take the randomness out of your buying. See what’s going on in your collection; find out what all those individual pieces you like so much have in common and proceed from there. Ask questions like: • Why do I like the kinds of art that

I’m buying? • What about it satisfies me? • Do I like the subject matter, what it represents, the colors, the historical aspects, the lives of the artists? • Does it take me to a special place? • Does it make me feel a certain way? • Do I admire its technical aspects the most? • Does it make me see life differently? • Is it that it’s old, new, local, foreign, big, small, round, square, whatever?

Once you identify the common traits, you can refine your buying to zero in on additional pieces that share those traits. It’s almost like putting together a mission statement or clearly and specifically defining your goals... and a collector with a specific mission or goals is always more effective at acquiring art than one who rarely questions why they buy what they do.