Art for Sale on LinkedIn

Forbes has an interesting article on the amount of art being offered by members of LinkedIn.  Parts of it are tongue in cheek, but the point is made that fakes, scams and misrepresentations be it willingly or unwillingly are becoming more prevalent on LinkedIn. 

If appraisers see these sort of posts within their groups, be sure to jump in and offer constructive methods, authentication and appraisal advice. I belong to several LinkedIn groups, mostly appraisal, USPAP or estate related, and on occasion I have seen some postings for members looking to buy or sell art.  Some appeared legitimate, but still seemed very questionable.  Some is probably legitimate, others, well...not so much.  But just like much cruise ship art purchases, done prior to any research, participating in these type of online transactions is a risky proposition.

Forbes reports 

Worst of all, perhaps, are the “financial advisors,” guys (they always seem to be men) who sweep in and announce that a client has “more than 15 million dollars worth of art” he’d  like to divest, or “more than 15 million dollars” available to buy “important 19^th and 20^th century art works by the masters.” (Apparently, said client has never heard of Christie’s. Nor, evidently – despite the magnitude of his collection and his drive to buy important art — does he know a single art dealer who can help him.)  “Absolute discretion,” these financial advisors announce to the several thousand members of the group, “is both required and assured.”

Sure, dude. No problem.

What is most striking about this to me is that everyone in the universe seems to be getting in on the art buying craze, including those who most likely whisper to their spouses that “our kids could do this” when nobody is around to hear.  There are people buying art and – apparently – selling art (or trying to) with absolutely not the slightest clue what they are doing.

In theory, this could be kind of funny. In practice, though, it’s not. There are enough new collectors out there — people who do have significant fortunes to spend, but somewhat less significant experience in the ins and outs of the art trade — that some could land themselves in situations that, at best, will prove an enormous waste of their time, and obviously, at worst, could lead to them being badly duped.

Mind you, I’m not suggesting that the people offering handfuls of (usually newly-discovered) Monets and Cezannes and Rembrandts  in Linked-In groups are knowingly misleading members, or misrepresenting what they have on offer.  Rather, I suspect that they, too, have been innocently looped into questionable situations: either they’ve been asked to sell works that the “owner” knows are fake – and they don’t know enough to tell the difference; or they have found themselves in the art world equivalent of forwarding the ten-year-old e-mail about the girl who will die next week if you don’t do something right now: in other words, someone asked a dealer to help sell a painting last year, and the word has simply spread, uncontrolled,  into the universe.

To read the complete Forbes article, click HERE.

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