It is a matter of taste..but not only just
For us buying art is not like buying furniture or clothes, collecting art for us is an intentional and focused long term endeavor. For many art buying art is a more spontaneous activity that is driven by momentarily likes, current preferences, or of instant attraction. In both cases, you buy what you like, but if the goal is to collect fine art in the long-term you should you do it right. It does not require a formal art education you just need to master three major skills.
The ability to effectively research, assess, and decide whether or not to buy individual works of art that attract you.
The second is being able to choose each individual work in such a way as to form a meaningful grouping, aka a collection.
How to main and use a strict budget.
Understanding the annual trends of the global art market may seem like a step to far for a collector who is just trying to by a few nice pictures that might be worth something one day. Not really, because like most commodities or assets, art does not exist in a vacuum. If you reasearch the bluebook value when buying a car for the model you're considering, or look at the appreciation of property values for a piece of land or house you're looking to buy, or even look at the resale price for a piece of jewelry or designer handbag. It's really not just a matter of taste when considering the purchase of an expensive asset that may or may not have a long-term value. The art market like any asset market is prone to bubbles and bust, and short term versus long-term trends. If you like an artwork, have a ton of disposable income, and you don't mind buying something that might end up not appreciating at all, you can stop reading this section now.
If you are a middle-class collector, it really is worthwhile doing a little bit of research not only on the art that you're considering buying and the artist you want to collect from but also having a good understanding of the current art market you're purchasing in. This will keep you from overpaying, and also give you an idea of what other collectors are doing because those moves can affect the value of the artwork that you're purchasing today, which you may need to quickly sell tomorrow.
I recommend Artsy’s annual art collector insight report for a good overview of current art collector purchasing trends. Artsy’s Art Collector Insights 2024 report has a number of interesting insights. The 2024 report found that “95% of collectors say price transparency on artworks is important,” this is something I absolutely agree with for the Montague art purchasing. “When asked to select the greatest hindrances to purchasing art online, most respondents (56%) selected a lack of visible price.” This is also a hindrance we face, in our The Montague Collection Strategy.
It was also interesting to see that “Most collectors are asking for a discount of 11–20% on artworks” To us this is good trend because it points to a more informed and resilient global art collector community. Sustainability, particularly price sustainability is important for the art market as a whole and also for fine art prices to rebalance themselves to a reasonable threshold. It has been instructive to see the instagram reactions of artists to this report finding in particular: “Normalize not giving discounts.” “Funny, I just happen to be thinking of raising my prices by 11%-20%.” “So bump up your prices.” “Curious if this is for buying direct from the artist or through a gallery. if the latter, negotiating out some of the middleman markup could be a factor.” These were a just few of the social media comments made by artists, who we will not name here for the sake of anonymity. It was interesting to see that no blue chip or highly successful artists commented on this. Angry artist comments were mostly made by artists whose work was amateurish or derivative. The truth is few people are able to make a living doing something they love, but are not good at. True artistic success is indicated by what people are willing to spend a lot of their hard earned money on. In the contemporary art world this is the only selector of quality. However, everyone who can afford it is willing to pay the absolute highest price for artwork, then artist will increase the price of their work to get the most they can, this will drive up the cost of art purchasing across the global art market and make purchasing quality art unattainable for middle-class collectors. Eventually, that unsustainable dynamic will shrink the number of artist who are able to make a living selling artwork, having pushed out the middle class and small collectors.
It may not seem evident, but wealthy collectors taste heavily influences the subject, media, type of art created for the entire art market. Having wealthy collectors be the only taste influence on the type of art being created by artists, and solely selecting the winners and losers of the art market creates less stylistic diversity, and narrows the availability of unique work in the art market has a whole. Most artist are not rich and cannot afford to make art just for themselves, no matter how many of them think that they're creating "l'art pour l'art,"or Art for Art Sake. At the end of the day, they have to make a living if they want to continue being professional artists. Most artists are not able to sell each work they created for $100,000 a piece, artist like those can be a little bit more selective and creative. The vast majority of artists are dependent on sales to eat. We have seen throughout most of art history the outsize influence of very wealthy collectors on what is produced and the artist they prefer being marked for success.
To make a long art history story short, in summary from the middle ages until the late Renaissance, the only people who could afford to commission and purchase art were absolutely rich. The rich population made up less than one percent of the population their taste preferences, subject, media, and style preferences is what is currently in the most important museums in the world. For artwork to resemble, reflect and depict, a contemporarily relevant and diverse subject matter; it is pivotal that the art created is funded, purchased, and commissioned by a good proportion of middle-class people and people of color. Otherwise 100 or 200 years from now the artwork hanging in museums and the art world winners will look a lot like the last 600 years of art history and not reflect our time. The vast majority of fine art movements that occurred after the Late Renaissance were influenced and financed by middle-class collectors. You would not have Abstraction, Surrealism, Art deco, Art nouveau, Pop art, Dada, Futurism, Memphis, Expressionism, Impressionism, Cubism to name a few artistic movements that would have been unlikely if not for the middle-class.
The Image above is The Art Story art history timeline display "Modern Art Movements: 1400s to 1980s. This timeline displays the major trends and movements in modern art, approximately dated to when they began, or when they gained prominence. Click to visit The Timeline on The Art Story website, or to visit the full list of all movements and styles on The Art Story.
It is important to note that before the French revolution, WWI and WWII, the proportion of wealthy to the middle-class in Western Europe was less than 5 to 10%. That is reflected in vast majority of art created between 1400 -1700’s, with the exception of the Dutch Golden Age - (which lead to great patronage of art by the expanding middle and merchant classes), The vast majortiy of art created in that period almost exclusively featured religious subjects, pastoral landscapes, depictions of war & generals, portraits of rich people & royalty, and classical subjects Roman and Greek mythology.
Good art should always reflect the times that we live in, hardships, and the realities faced by everyday people in the time period artwork is created in. The best contemporary artwork does not reflect the self indulgence and desires of the rich, it provides commentary and critique of the society we live in.
Bibliography
Kakar, Arun. 2024. “Art Collector Insights 2024 | Artsy.” Artsy. September 19, 2024. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-art-collector-insights-2024.
The Art Story . n.d. “Modern Art Timelines.” The Art Story. https://www.theartstory.org/section-timelines.htm.