Fossicking for Profitable Art - artmarketblog.com

Fossicking for Profitable Art - artmarketblog.com

Definition of Fossick:

Pronunciation:

\ˈfä-sik\

Function:

verb

Etymology:

English dialect fossick to ferret out

Date:

1852

1.Australian & New Zealand : to search for gold or gemstones typically by picking over abandoned workings

2. chiefly Australian & New Zealand : to search about : rummage

Australian & New Zealand : to search for by or as if by rummaging : ferret out

With all the current art market action I am often tempted to jump on
the same bandwagon as all the major news reporters and report the
results of the various sales and fairs that attract so much attention.
That is, until I do a search of the news and come across 80 odd
articles reporting the same thing after which I am no longer tempted to
conform to the mass media and am encouraged to continue along a more
alternative path.

Having got that off my chest I will now get on with today’s topic
that comes from a very recent experience I had while looking at some
online galleries for an artwork to invest in. My method of choice for
deciding on an artwork to invest in follows the following series of
steps:

1. Decide on what medium I want to invest in (painting, print, photography etc.)

2. Decide on a price range

3. Find an online gallery that stocks works of art in my chosen medium and price range

4. Go through the works on offer and begin researching the artists and their career history to ascertain investment potential

The only things I did differently on this particular occasion was to
have a look at the back catalogue of works that the website had for
sale. Most galleries that sell works online will release one work say
every month or so and will often have unsold works in a back catalogue,
especially if the work was a limited edition print or a limited edition
photograph. While looking through the back catalogue I began doing some
research on some of the artist’s whose limited edition prints that were
for sale had originally been launched in 2006. For some reason people
seem to assume that because an artwork is still in the inventory after
a couple of years that it is not a desirable artwork but you never know
what the artist has done since producing that artwork.

One particular artist that I researched had gained significant
international attention, been on television and been touted as the next
big thing all in the 3 year time period between the artist’s print
being offered for sale on this particular website and me visiting the
website and researching the artist. I immediately purchased one of
these prints for the small sum of $400 which in reality is probably now
worth 5 times that meaning that I made a 500% profit in a matter of
seconds. The moral of the story is: It pays to check the back catalogue
of an online gallery because you never know what you will find.

**Nicholas Forrest is an art market analyst, art critic and journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He is the founder of http://www.artmarketblog.com,
writes the art column for the magazine Antiques and Collectibles for
Pleasure and Profit and contributes to many other publications.