Speculative and Long Term Fine Art Investment

There are many questions that should be asked before embarking upon a career of fine art
investment. The first and foremost question however should be whether or not you are truly committed to making fine art collecting work for you. This is not a business for the faint of heart. In order to truly turn a profit you must be at times ruthless when dealing with buyers and sellers but ethical to a fault when it comes to the work that must often be done in order to get a piece in sellable condition.

The reason a serious commitment is needed in order to make art collections as a collector work for you are simple. There will be ups and downs along the way. The fine art market experiences rises and falls on a regular basis. Just as you cannot dump all of your stock over one bad day the same holds true even more so in the realm of fine art investing. Artwork values has a tendency in general to rise gradually over time. This means that even if the values in a particular category falter chances are that they will eventually recover.

Those who bank on the slow and steady growth in the value are referred to as buy and hold investors. These investors are truly committed to their investment. Some of them elect to hold the artwork as an appreciable asset while others opt to earn an income on the artwork by renting it out to galleries or donation to museums for deferred write-offs, whatever their choice may be.


Those who own art collections must also be committed to making their investments work for them. Artwork collections are not a 'hands off' type of investment, as they will need to be maintained in order to remain in demand by collectors. You must also make constant efforts maintain artwork managed and curated along with remaining certain that you are insuring your collection and that the properties aren't falling into a state of disrepair or neglect by either galleries with your items on loan to museums or galleries in some cases for consignment.

Many investors retain the services of portfolio management agencies in order to handle the minutia of month-to-month details,preservation,restoration and collections. This is a great idea whether you have a small collection or a vast portfolio of artwork. Even better however, is the fact that if you keep your collection in reasonable repair throughout the years they can become liquid assets in time. In other words, they may actually pay for themselves a few times over even in licensing if you invest for the long-term rather than focusing on the moment.

No matter what type of fine art investment you intend to have it is important that you are prepared to make the commitment to profit or profitability that is necessary in order for your venture to be deemed a success.