Elite Traveler May-June 2016

INFLUENCE ART COLUMN

elite traveler MAY/JUNE 2016 60

Elizabeth Beaman on collecting art If you wish to start collecting art, it is worth heeding these wise words fromChristie’s expert Elizabeth Beaman. But all the research and study of the subject is worth nothing if you don’t love what you buy

Once you are able to place a work within the greater context of the artist’s body of work, you are on your way. One of the most exciting categories in our field right now is American modernism. This includes the bold and daring group of artists represented by the photographer, influential tastemaker and dealer Alfred Stieglitz. Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, John Marin, Oscar Bluemner, Marsden Hartley, Charles Sheeler and Charles Demuth are among them, as well as artists such as Edward Hopper, Stuart Davis and Milton Avery. While major paintings by any of these artists can represent a significant investment (the record price for any American modernist is $44 million for a painting by Georgia O’Keeffe), there are still so many wonderful smaller works available at more reasonable prices. For example, you can still acquire a small, but impactful, work on paper by Oscar Bluemner for under $20,000. This is a market where examples are still available each season and where we foresee tremendous growth. Increasingly, collectors of post-war and contemporary art are understanding the important role the American modernists played in shaping the history of art in America over the 20th century, and that these artists were the forbearers to the abstract expressionists and beyond. Mark Rothko, for example, was a great admirer of Milton Avery while Thomas Hart Benton was one of Jackson Pollock’s teachers. While American art is a mature market, in the sense that no new work is being produced and it has been avidly collected for decades, there are still a great number of opportunities to acquire exciting and important examples by key figures. The best advice to the new collector in this field is to determine what excites them most visually, and then to rely on the expertise we as auction house specialists provide to help guide, build and grow a collection.

When I meet new collectors, they often ask me to predict trends and provide advice on what artists or movements represent good buys in the current market place. In American art at Christie’s, we are primarily selling artists who have already passed the test of history. This is not an emerging market, but rather a stable and healthy one in which the artists we sell today are the same artists we have sold since the earliest dedicated sales of the category in the 1970s. This stability, however, does not mean the market is not susceptible to trends, and we have seen different artists soar to new heights that were previously held in little regard by the art market (Norman Rockwell comes to mind) while other artists and schools may have realized their strongest prices in the 1980s. There are fluctuations in price and taste, even in the established American field, which means collectors should rely on only one strategy when it comes to buying art. It may sound like the biggest art world cliché, particularly now that Christie’s has sold over a billion dollars in a single week in 2015,

but the best advice for both new and existing collectors is “buy what you love”. That is, buy what you love with one important caveat – that you have conducted as much research as possible in advance. Research should consider where the work fits into the artist’s overall body of work in terms of date, medium, scale and most importantly, quality. Other considerations should include the history of ownership, or provenance of the work, the market exposure of the work and the condition. As it pertains to an investment strategy, the most important question to ask is how have comparable works by the artist performed on the open market? The good news is, research can be fun. The best way to inform your eye is to visit museums, galleries and auction houses regularly to familiarize yourself with particular artists and movements. A museum exhibition can be an excellent way to understand what the best examples by an artist might look like. Galleries and auction houses can help educate you on what is available on the market for that particular artist.

Once you are able to place a work within the greater context of the artist’s body of work, you are on your way

THE COLLECTION OF KIPPY STROUD Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) Red Hills with Pedernal, White Clouds Oil on canvas 20 x 30 in Painted in 1936 Estimate: $3,000,000-5,000,000 Included in Christie’s American Art auction on May 19, 2016

Elizabeth Beaman is head of the American Art Department and Senior Vice President at Christie’s.

Photo: CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2016