Art as an Investment

Forbes appears to be running some blog posts on art as an investment by writer Kathryn Tully.  I will be keeping an eye on the posts to see how the financial magazine covers art as an investment.  Many financial papers have been covering art as an investment, art as an asset class, art and financial returns, art as an alternative investment, etc.  Call it what you may, art as an investment is certainly creeping into the lexicon of the financial press on a regular basis.  And, for the most part, that is a good thing for appraisers.

In the initial Forbes post

Of the 2000 high net worth individuals around the world that Barclays surveyed for their June report Wealth Insights: Profit or Pleasure?, only 10% said they bought fine art pictures or paintings purely as an investment, while 69% believed that the financial value of art is driven by public taste, rather than its intrinsic worth.

Despite all these difficulties, art investment is a big business. Since 2008, a new generation of art investment funds have set up shop as the broader art market has recovered. Some of these funds even offer managed art accounts for individual investors. The number of art indices is also growing. In May, the art market data provider artnet launched the latest of these, focused on modern and contemporary art. Artnet’s objective is to increase price transparency in a market where that is in scant supply.

That’s a laudable goal, but do any of these initiatives really make art a viable investment or do they just add a veneer of financial respectability to a market that doesn’t support it? In this blog, I’ll be wading into the world of art investment, and the investment market for other collectibles such as antiques, jewelry, photography and fine wine, to try to find out.

Source: Forbes