How to Collect Art Like a Pro - Building a Collection

Excerpts from Alan Bamberger

...Regardless of how you view your collecting, whether serious or recreational, there are techniques that you can use to maximize not only the quality and value of your art, but also your own personal enjoyment, appreciation, and understanding of that art.
Step one is being true to your tastes.
This means acknowledging that you like certain types of art regardless of what you think you're supposed to like or what seems to be the current rage. All great collectors share this trait-- that's one thing makes their collections stand out. When personal preference is ignored in favor of the status quo, one collection begins to look just like the next. A few people dictate, the masses follow, everyone walks in lock-step, and the art you see from collection to collection becomes boring and repetitive.
Collectors who aren't afraid to express themselves yield exactly the opposite results. Take, for example, the artist who, several years ago, put together a collection of paintings bought exclusively at second hand stores and garage sales, often for little more than a few dollars each. His collection ultimately toured the country and was published as a book. Many of us were not only entertained by it, but it also helped to broaden our definition of what could reasonably be considered art. He taught us that interesting looking art can be found just about anywhere, not only at the major museums or in the best galleries. Now he would never, most likely, have put this collection together if he had chosen to mimic the tastes of others rather than be true to his own.
You may or may not be well along in your collecting, but if you have any nagging doubts about what you've been buying, what you've deliberately avoided, whether you're totally satisfied or you just want to take a moment to see what's new, suspend your buying for a bit and take a look around. Don't confine yourself to the same museums or galleries or wherever else you've been looking at art. Get out there and see what else is going on.
Explore the less conventional if that's what you're curious about. Look at art that you think might attract you, but that you've always steered clear of. Don't be afraid to experiment. You may end up right back where you started, reinforcing your chosen path, but then again, something new and truly unique may thrill you at some point along the way. Periodic reappraisals of your tastes are always a good idea. What excites you today could easily bore you tomorrow. A quality collection is always evolving and never static.
The next step is educating yourself. Once again, you probably know a good deal about what you collect already, but the educational process is a continuing one. Be an informed buyer. Learn from the pros. Take every opportunity to discuss the fine points of what you're looking at with as many different experts as possible. Not only does this improve your abilities to separate out the great from the good from the not so good, but you also learn how to protect yourself against being taken advantage of in the marketplace-- which brings us to this next point.
Hand in hand with knowing the art goes knowing the marketplace-- and here's were many collectors fall short. The great collectors know just about everyone who sells what they collect; they're on top of the market and the market knows them. They're tuned in to the late breaking news and when something exciting is about to happen, they're usually among the first to find out about it. The top collectors go to great lengths to scoop the competition when the best art comes up for sale-- because it doesn't come up all that often. They also know how to compare and contrast what dealers offer them in order to assure that something is as good as they're led to believe it is.
What amazes me about art collecting in general is the lack of comparison shopping and market savvy that collectors often show. Far too many establish relationships with only one or two galleries and rarely if ever stray. The danger in doing this is that your overview of the market suffers. You can inadvertently subjugate yourself to the tastes of one or two dealers and, over time, your collection becomes less of what you originally intended it to be and more of what the galleries tell you it should be.
Knowing the marketplace also prevents you from overpaying. Simply put, Gallery X may offer you a painting for $10,000; Gallery Y may have a comparable piece priced at $7500. If you only shop Gallery X and you don't know that Gallery Y exists, you waste $2500. Or Gallery X may borrow that $7500 painting from Gallery Y and offer it to you for $10,000. Same outcome.
Regarding the art that does make it into your collection, most novice collectors will tell you that they buy what they like. That's the best way to buy, but as you gain experience, the reasons why you buy what you like should become increasingly more conscious, complex, and purposeful. "Not only do I love this sculpture, but it's also a prime example of the artist's best subject matter dating from his most productive time period and it fills a major gap in my collection."

Experienced collectors show this sense of sureness and direction in their overall plans. And here's where we get into the essence of collecting, of what distinguishes a superior collection from an inferior one. In a superior collection, every piece belongs; nothing is random or arbitrary. A less experienced collector, on the other hand, may know plenty about each individual piece of art, but lack an overall understanding how they work together or even if they work together. "What's all this art doing in my house at the same time? I really don't know. I'm not quite sure."
In a sense, what the experienced collector does is pose a problem and then illustrate the solution to that problem by piecing together a collection. That way, everything fits, it all makes sense according to the master plan. Take this problem, for instance:
What is the history of still life painting in Indiana? The solution is an art collection consisting of still life paintings by Indiana artists that date from pioneer days right up to the present.
Pose your problem as soon as you can. Take the randomness out of your buying. See what's going on in your collection; find out what all those individual pieces you like so much have in common and proceed from there. Ask questions like:
* Why does my art make me feel good?
* What about it satisfies me?
* Do I like the subject matters, the colors, the historical aspects, the lives of the artists?
* Does it take me to a special place?
* Does it make me feel a certain way?
* Do I respect the way it's put together?
* Does it make me see life differently?
* Is it that it's old, new, local, foreign, big, small, round, square, whatever?
Once you identify the common traits, you can refine your buying to zero in on additional pieces that share those traits. The collector with a mission is always more effective at acquiring than one who rarely questions why they buy what they do. By the way, if the answers to your questions sound like these-- "I buy what my friends buy; I buy for investment; I buy only the big names"-- consider returning to square one, determining what kinds of art you really, really like, and starting all over again.