How to get an Interest Free Loan to Buy Art

by artmarketguru | October 29, 2007 at 08:22 pm

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Did
you know that you can get an interest free loan to buy art? The Arts
Council of England has recently announced a program called ‘Own Art’
which allows people to burrow money to buy a contemporary work of art.
According to their website (http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/ownart/index.html)
the purpose of the program is to “ put the arts at the heart of
national life. One of the ways we do this is to encourage people to
live with art they love. We also want to help artists live by their
creative output and support galleries who sell high quality
contemporary art.”

An individual can burrow between 100 pounds and 2000 pounds to
purchase an artwork (painting, photograph, sculpture, furniture,
glassware etc) from one of the 250 participating galleries in the UK
and then pay back the money burrowed in 10 monthly instalments interest
free!!! I think this is such an amazing idea which should be taken
advantage of by everyone who ever thought about buying a work of art. I
wish that I could be involved but this particular art loan scheme is
only available to people who live in England or Scotland.

The idea of cultural institutions loaning money to people to buy art
is not a new concept with the Arts Council of Wales having offered a
similar program to ‘Own Art’ for 20 years called the Principality
Collector Plan (http://www.artswales.org/page.asp?id=66).
The Principality Collector Plan differs from ‘Own Art’ in that the loan
period is longer and the monthly repayment amount is flexible although
they do require a 10% deposit whereas the Own Art program does not.
Like the Own Art program the Principality Collector Plan is only
available to UK residents.

I have been unable to find any similar programs outside of the UK
but hopefully cultural institutions and arts councils in other
countries will take notice and follow the example set by the UK.

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