We understand the notion of paying for size and location in real estate, but most of us have no criteria (or confidence in the criteria) to judge the price for a work of art. In the United States, with the exception of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., most museums were founded by private individuals and are run as not-for-profit institutions governed by boards of trustees. Part of what we process in the split second that we lay our eyes on a work of art is what it may remind us of, consciously or subconscious and what we know about the artist if we recognize the hand. The vast majority of works in museums, however, are genuinely out of circulation.The collector Tony Ganz, whose parents owned a legendary collection of 20th-century art, tells of having a playdate with a school friend at the age of six. Such works may be proportionately less expensive because they are harder to sell.Depending on the medium used by the artist, there may be a cost of manufacture to consider. Picasso mastered many different methods of expression, and in almost every period or style he produced works of mixed quality from the transcendent to the slapdash. Art experiences don’t have to be expensive. The larger the work, the higher the price, with the exception of paintings and sculptures that may be too large for domestic installation and require the kind of space usually found only in institutions, office buildings, shopping malls, and casinos. We pay for things that can be lived in, driven, consumed, and worn; and we believe in an empirical ability to judge their relative quality and commercial value. An important provision states that “in no event shall they [proceeds from the sale] be used for anything other than acquisition or direct care of collections.’The likeliest candidates for sale are donated works that duplicate what the museum already holds and works of such patent inferiority that they are never likely to be exhibited. Raw numbers, however, are useless unless interpreted with facts exclusive to each work of art, as well as the circumstances of the sale. Art on the cheap…. Many then assume that there are plenty of top-quality Monets, Picassos, Pollocks, or Warhols out there and that all it takes is their ability and willingness to put a digit and seven (or even eight) zeros on the table to have a van Gogh, “just like that portrait at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.”The next stage in their education is to find out the painful truth, which is that there are only four such portraits in private hands that might equal the one in Boston, all much smaller. Not everything touched by a well-known artist is a masterpiece; some scraps are worth little more than an autograph. When I entered the art trade in the mid-1960s, there were only a few living artists whose works regularly appeared in the secondary market.
The Value of Art | Sotheby's Financial Services | Sotheby's “Authenticity is the soul of the object,” says Chinese works of art expert Nicolas Chow, adding “Anything that is … – The dictionary definition of art says that it is “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects” (Merriam-Webster). A car usually is, as are clothes we give to charity. This is often the case.An eye for quality is easily trained by simply seeing as much as possible, in the flesh, by a particular artist and artists of the same school. Although the artist’s audience has not yet rendered an opinion about which type of work is better or more desirable than any other, and the artist may feel some smaller works are better than some larger ones, usually size wins out, and the smallest works are usually the least expensive. They may not have any direct relationship with the artist but may be very knowledgeable about the work, and by promoting it they are usually contributing to the solidity of that artist’s market.Even in the primary market, the relative availability real or imagined, of a particular artist’s work is key. Today buyers of Impressionist works will pay a premium for paintings that are not relined and have only modest restoration.By now it should be apparent that while there are many factors in the creation of the commercial value of a work of art, few are empirical and most are relative. Examples would include Banksy, Damien Hirst, Picasso, Basquiat or Edward Hopper. Access the data behind the headlines with the artnet Price Database. Mastery of the medium, clarity of execution, and authority of expression are vital criteria applicable to all works of art, regardless of style or subject.
The art dealer rarely says, “Andy’s studio is packed to the gills with hundreds of paintings just like this one, so take plenty of time to choose the one you want.” Rather: “I’m not sure if there will be any more like this; he’s painting very slowly, and we’ve sold the few others we had to very important museums and collectors.”A little history.