Is buying contemporary art a good investment?
Obviously, I’m going to say yes (we are promoting Sussex contemporary artists, after all).
Art can do more than brighten a living space and the art market has become one of the hottest new investments in recent years. With many people frequently buy pieces to add to their investment portfolio.
If you are thinking of trying to make a quick buck by purchasing a piece of art from a new or emerging artist, hanging on to it for a month or two and selling it on again for a tidy profit, then forget it. It doesn’t work like that.
You can get a handsome return, though.
Art can go up in price just like stocks and shares, but it doesn’t happen overnight. If a new or emerging artist goes on to have a successful career, then the value of their work can skyrocket.
Back in 1989, a 28-year-old City trader called Robert Tibbles used his annual bonus to buy a piece of art for the princely sum of £600. The artwork was a medicine cabinet filled with pill bottles by a student at Goldsmiths College of Art, London. Tibbles’ friends derided him and labelled the work as ‘crap’ and suggested that he return it and get his money back.
Bought for £600 in 1989
“I can’t explain why I had to buy it, but I did. For a long time, people were really quite rude about it; essentially, they were saying, ‘what is that doing in your drawing room?” said Tibbles in an interview with the Guardian newspaper.
The student was Damian Hirst, and Tibbles was the first to buy his work, closely followed by a Charles Saatchi.
“He believed in me when no one did,” Hirst said in an Instagram post. “Not many people bought my work in those days, and the ones that did, sold it pretty quickly.”
Tibbles hung on to the piece, called Bodies, until 2020, when it sold at auction for a mere £1,368,600. It is not every day that you can make 2,281 times your initial investment and if I’m honest, I’m not sure that I would have spent £600 on it either.
Tibbles didn’t buy it purely for investment purposes. He genuinely liked the piece. And that is the key to investing in contemporary art, as it will guarantee a return. I don’t mean that it will definitely guarantee a financial return, but it will give you years of enjoyment as it hangs on your wall or stands on your sideboard potentially appreciating in value. Investing in art should be emotional as well as fiscal.
As the value of artwork is positively affected by the artist having a successful career, there is some merit in giving them a helping hand by supporting them on social media, attending their exhibitions and, of course, buying more of their work.
If you are going to invest in some art then do remember that unlike a savings account or stocks and shares, art is fairly illiquid. That means that it can be hard to turn your investment back into cash quickly, so it should be a long-term thing. Art also needs care, and sometimes maintenance, to keep it in tip top condition and it needs to be defended from toddlers with marker pens!
The art market is currently in a great condition and a recent report by Deloitte suggested that over 85% of wealth managers recommend including art in a balanced investment portfolio. Investment in blue chip art (work by widely recognised artists) also outperformed the FTSE 100 by a whopping 460% in 2020-21 according to Artprice 100.
We can’t all afford to invest in blue chip art but most of us can afford contemporary art from a local artist that might be starting out in their career. I recommend that you take a look round your local galleries and see if anything takes your fancy. Find out about the artist, follow their social channels, sign up to their newsletters and watch their careers with interest. You never know, you could be sitting on the next Damien Hirst or Grayson Perry.
If you want to see up to 200 pieces of contemporary art by some fantastic Sussex artists that might be worth investing in, then I know an art exhibition in October that will worth a visit…
