Abstract Art including: Abstract Art Paintings, Abstract Art Prints, drawings, wall sculptures.>How to Find & Buy Great Art

How to Find & Buy Great Fine Art Paintings

Many friends have asked me: 

“How do I buy great art?”

“What is the right artwork for me and where should I look for it?”  

“How do I know that the price is just right?”   

I usually have a simple answer for my friends: Great art is something that speaks to you and is of great value. 

The complicated answer answers three basic questions: 

1.      How do I buy great art?  Buy the artwork that awakens your imagination,  makes you smile, and makes you feel good.  Yes, great art does these to you.  You should not try to mach the art with the color of your curtains or anything else in your room or house.  After all, you did not find your soul mate because his or her eyes matched the color of your jacket. Once the art is in your room, wait a few days, because in time, the artwork will show you what things in the room you need to move around, change, or remove.

2.      Where do I find it?  Searching on the internet is a lot faster and easier than anything else.  If you live in a big city, however, spend some time in visiting group or individual art shows.  Art is love at first sight—you will know what is for  you when you see it.

3.      Great value. It should be of high quality at a lower price.  This is the most complicated part. The cost of materials and effort that went into the making of a Yugo is not the same as that in the making of a Lincoln.  In short, you can say you get what you pay for.   But art is a different story.  Let’s take as an example a 20"x30" painting that uses oil on canvas. A canvas is $15.00, oil paint is $25.00 for five tubes, plus $5.00 for other materials. The total cost should be $45.00, but let's make it $50.00. 

Master Artist El Greco's 20"x30" painting had the same cost with Joe's painting of the same size.  You all know El Greco, but who is Joe?  Joe "learned" to paint watching Bob Ross' TV shows, and because all his friends complimented his talents, (that's what friends do), he believed he could ask $500, $1000, $2,000 or whatever felt good. You get the picture. But Joe's work is not worth even the cost of the materials.  We can all agree that El Greco's artwork is priceless but Joe's painting is worthless.  Now if you happened to pay $1 or $2,000 for Joe's painting, you wasted your money.  There are many art dealers and famous art galleries representing the Joes in the world and you face a great risk of being taken for a ride. A great example of the point I am trying to make is what is being said in this article by art critic Jerry Saltz.

NY Magazine

"In fact, there was a tremendous, galvanizing object lesson of art only a few feet east of The Clock, at Larry Gagosian’s gallery. There, in Gagosian’s gorgeous pharaonic palace, is installed the stunningly shallow, ridiculously overproduced, empty-headedly decadent exhibition of the market darling Francesco Vezzoli. The gallery has been reconstructed to look like a church or chapel. Everything is painted gray; the lights are dim. A kitschy, hackneyed statue of a Madonna stands at one end. Really, the gallery resembles a Vegas marriage chapel or a high-school theater set. In large plywood nooks, the artist has installed pictures of supermodels as saints holding children. The figures all cry sewn-on tears in the shape of modern masters like Rothko and Lichtenstein. The images are framed in gold-colored frames, melted at their bottoms, Dali-style. It’s nitwitted inanity, a bird-brained and shoddy vacuity, and yet there are collectors stupid enough to buy this work (priced in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, I’m told).

What’s thrilling and encouraging about this silliness is that it can be in such a big gallery and still have absolutely no effect on anyone anywhere. Apart from the idiots who buy it, the Vezzoli show will sink without a trace, confirming that high prices and hype don’t affect anything, and that these sorts of measures of quality have less and less impact outside a tiny insular group. The rest of us were down the block at Paula Cooper—or almost any gallery in town—having a better experience." 

This is one more case of Joe's painting and the art gallery representing him looking for a few good idiots, idiots who are real people looking for real art. 

To avoid this, once you find the artwork that you like, find out as much as you can about the artist.  First, the artist should have dedicated his or her life to art, a full-time artist.  After all, Aristotle said that we are what we repeatedly do.  If the artist is a retired person who became an artist out of the blue, think again.  You do not want to buy someone's hobby, you want to buy someone's passion. 

Second, compare prices. Many artists put very high prices on their artwork, as in the case of Francesco Vezzoli, but many artists also give their art away, like the great Van Gogh.  Look for the latter and you've got great art for great value.   Never lose sight of the number one tip, though—Great art awakens your imagination, makes you smile, and makes you feel good.

Should you still be in doubt about what you have found, email me the details of the artwork and I will give you my opinion.  Good luck.