Art Advisory Talks - Art Collecting

Collection, from Latin collection, colligĕre “to collect”. An orderly collection of objects of the same kind, whether they have value either for their intrinsic worth or for their historical or artistic or scientific interest or simply for curiosity or personal pleasure.

Almost all of us have collected something at least once in our lives, even as children, insects, stamps, surprises, postcards, pencils and many other things, valuable or simply bizarre. Collecting means looking for objects that tell something about us.

A collection of artwork is born above all out of instinct, out of passion.

When we visit a museum, all we do is peek into the collections that belong to that context and are an expression of great personalities of the past, from individuals to families.

By admiring works of art, we are able to retrace the lives of the great collectors who created them. Today, the habit of opening private museums is becoming increasingly widespread because often those who love works also love to share them with others, in a kind of patronage that continues and changes with the passing of the centuries.

However, the collection can also have an intimate and private dimension, without the need to show it to the outside world.

 

But how does one start collecting works of art?

There can be several reasons. An inheritance, a passion passed down in the family, a business investment. Or a simple passion for art, in all its forms.

The figure of the Art Advisor, in these cases, can be a valuable support. The specialist, after a careful and accurate analysis, can set up with the client the basic criteria for conceiving and creating his own collection, studying a curatorial project and choosing an area of interest (photography, painting, sculpture, antique or contemporary, just to give some examples), assessing whether one intends to identify a strand that can, however, change direction according to greater knowledge or evolution.
And finally, deal appropriately with the economic issue, assessing with the collector how much of his or her estate can be allocated to the purchase of works and dividing it up over time.

A good Art Advisor should concentrate more on the analysis of objective, technical and regulatory data, so as to leave the collector with the more empathetic and emotional aspects of the art purchase, suggesting or even pointing out possible works or objects that could increase the collection, always analysing each individual object in its qualitative aspects and in the congruity of the price, but in every auction or direct choice it is often the emotional component that has the upper hand.

However, there are also collectors who primarily wish to acquire artworks to diversify their holdings and who experience the collection not only for the enjoyment of the aesthetic aspect but also for a possible - and hoped-for - future economic revaluation.

This is why a well-constructed collection can also have a significant economic value, which must be monitored and protected over time. The Art Advisor, in these cases, is the ideal figure to manage it and, when possible, enhance it.
In detail, the actions to be taken can be good conservation, either in a domestic environment or in a specialised vault, so as to have suitable and stable microclimatic conditions. Periodic monitoring carried out with the intervention of a restorer who is able to draw up a professional condition report and assess the advisability of restoration work or simple cleaning.
Another fundamental aspect is to create or enhance the work's curriculum vitae through loans to important exhibitions and museums, or its presence in publications, reasoned catalogues or critical texts that confirm and enhance the work's history and importance.

In addition, the work of an Art Advisor who is familiar with the dynamics of the market is fundamental for monitoring the price trends of individual authors and signalling possible sale or purchase opportunities by bringing together the technical/practical, economic, historical/artistic and curatorial aspects that underlie the collector's choices.

Then there is another type of collections, the Corporate ones, which, especially when looking at banking institutions, are usually large and varied, built up over time through the union of different corporate assets. They can range from antique to contemporary and are often linked to the territory in which they are rooted.

Behind every type of collection there is always the first purchase (or gift, if you are lucky).
One can enter a gallery, attend an auction, meet an artist or buy from a private individual: the questions to ask are and must always be the same, starting with the authenticity of the work, its provenance, the state of preservation and, among others, the fairness of the price.

We can visit fairs, exhibitions and become passionate about a theme, a material or an artistic current, be it contemporary or from the past.

 

The history of collecting can be studied in books, but defining how a collector and his/her collection are born is a bit like explaining the uniqueness of a artwork: there is no rule, fortunately.