How to collect art on a budget

A reflection on how to build an art collection without actually bankrupting yourself.

There’s a little booklet by Eugene Schwartz, a New York copywriter in advertising, entitled "Confessions of a poor collector". It’s a short read, but it contains all the key points on how collecting on a budget works.

Recently I took it out again, as I wanted to re-read some of his insights on how he built his collection. I wanted to see how collecting good art was possible on a budget.

The booklet was re-issued by Edition Taube in 2011 and was first published in 1970 as part of a lecture given at the cultural center in New York.

Working in the art world and dealing with collectors, I found this pamphlet to be quite interesting.

It gave me the opportunity to look into the collector's psyche. I was able to recognise patterns about how most of the collectors collect.

Collecting is a trade that somehow hasn’t changed over the years. The dynamic relationship between artist, dealer and collector has remained constant.

The scope of building a good collection is to find good art, the right dealers, and the best curators. This is key to unlocking the best art.

Schwartz points out how collecting should start with building a good knowledge of art history, and to never haggle the price down as one should respect the labour of the artist and the dealers

(but of course a customary 10% discount is always possible and granted with pleasure when someone is so truly in love with a work).

Here's the breakdown how to collect art on a budget:

1. Quality over quantity

Schwartz tells us that what matters in the end is not the quantity but quality. What makes a collection great is not the quantity of pieces, but the quality of the pieces.

He also points out that a computer would be able to collect great art as it would be able to select through calculus and compare the best work for quality, an interesting thought for the 1970s.

With the advent of AI and chatGPT, collecting could become computerised. But would it be really able to substitute the dealer’s and curator’s knowledge and what kind of collection would these be? I guess, they would be monotone and even if AI is helping in so many fields, it probably wouldn’t be able to help here, given that collecting and promoting good art is a quality that still needs the human touch. This can’t be farmed out to an Ai agent.

2. Get friendly with your dealer

Selling is an art. But when it comes to selling art, it is important to further an artist’s career and to sell something that one truly believes is really good.

As a dealer and ex-gallerist, I never pushed any artists to buyers who I thought were not worthy. Does this make me a bad salesperson? No. It makes me a tastemaker; a dealer of the old type where the discourse and the quality of a work have the prevalence over the flashiness and hipness.

I also find it frustrating when a collector doesn’t see the greatness of an art work, but these kinds of collectors will come back eventually when the works of the artists in question will be in every living room and museum.

Unfortunately for them, by then, the prices will be much higher.

3. Buy what you love

True collecting is about passion, intuition, and a deep personal connection to art. And also listening to your gallerist.

Sometimes an artist won't get a break for years. But when it happens, if you've followed your gut and bought pieces which align with your taste, you’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.

Myself, I collect art too. I have a few small key pieces of artists I have worked with. Some pieces I received as a gift, some I purchased and I always purchased using my intuition, passion and of course my years of knowledge working in this field.

I live with these works. Every day I am more and more in love with what I have or have been gifted. The perks of being a good artist liaison, I suppose.

If one keeps these very basic steps in mind when collecting art, then one is already half-way there to building the best collection one could be possibly dream of.

And a bit of a budget helps too.