Hidden Treasures

Tucked away in a cellar in Bahrain is one of the largest collections of Islamic art in the world. It is the life’s work of Abdul Latif Jassim Kanoo – and now, for the first time, the public will be able to see it, when a new exhibition hall opens at the Beit Al Qur’an museum. Hamida Ghafour had a sneak preview.

In a darkened room of Abdul Latif Jassim Kanoo’s museum in Bahrain, a single spotlight picks out the brilliant blue tones of an exquisite vase painted with gentle scenes of rural Chinese life. It is an unusual piece, Kanoo explains, because it was made by Iranian pottery makers mimicking Chinese porcelain.

It is a rare and valuable item, but for Kanoo there is another more personal story attached to it.

He bought the pot in London but was not allowed to board the aeroplane because it was too big.

“The only way was to buy it a seat,” he says. “So it was me in one seat, Mrs Kanoo on the other side and the pot in between. We told people it was our child.”

The Iranian pot is among the hundreds of treasures that are part of an upcoming exhibition to open during Ramadan at the new Dr Abdul Latif Kanoo Hall at the Beit Al Qur’an museum in Manama, which he founded.

It is no ordinary exhibition, however. Kanoo has spent 50 years travelling around the globe and amassing one of the largest private collections of Islamic art in the world, much of it rarely or never seen in public.

One afternoon shortly before the hall opened I got a sneak preview of his incredible collection of Islamic treasures.

In his office he reaches into his safe and takes out four opaque plastic containers. He opens one and places in the palm of my hand an exquisite cup heavy for its small size.

“Are these emeralds and rubies?” I ask, touching the inlaid jewels. Yes, he says. It is a 16th century Mogul cup carved from a piece of rock crystal.

We try on a couple of Mogul archer rings, which were worn by Indian warriors in battle to protect their fingers when the bow was pulled. They are made of pale green jade studded with rubies, and I wonder if the archers were worried about losing a ruby when they fired arrows.

“I must catalogue these,” he mutters.


Kanoo rummages around the boxes for his collection of Islamic coins. He has one from every year of the Islamic calendar, except for the first year in which the young Muslim empire began minting coins, Hijri 77 (696AD).

“There are only eight in the world. I couldn’t afford it, the last one I saw was selling for US$200,000 to US$300,000 (Dh1.2 million to Dh1.8 million),” he says.

The basement of the Beit Al Qur’an Museum houses the Kanoo’s private collection of Islamic art.

When he steps out of his office to chat with his secretary he jokingly adds, “Don’t steal anything.”

Kanoo is in his 70s – he does not have a precise age because he was born in Bahrain at a time when the Bedouin did not keep such records – and is a scion of the Kanoo dynasty, one of the great merchant families in the Gulf who made a fortune in shipping, travel and oil, among other things, a century ago. Arabian Business last year estimated the family’s wealth at US$6.1 billion (Dh37 billion) and ranked them number nine in the top 10 richest families in the Middle East.

Kanoo, however, has never been involved very much or interested in the family business. He has divided his life between his family, his work as an engineer and his private passion as an art lover.

He is an avuncular, jovial figure who loves talking about his five grandchildren, teasing his secretary and calling the room in which he keeps his treasures “the dungeon”.

“Should we go to the dungeon?” he asks when he finishes speaking to his secretary. The dungeon is the basement of the Beit Al Qur’an museum where he stores the bulk of his personal art collection.

There is a special lift to take him to the basement but no one can find the key so he walks downstairs instead. A nondescript door leads to a large semicircular room with a massive pillar in the middle that is part of the supporting foundation of the building. A gorgeous wall of framed miniature paintings, Indian, Turkish and Iranian, dating from the 15th to 17th centuries, greets us.

“This one is very rare,” he says, pointing to a domestic Indian scene set against a subdued backdrop of gold and silver.

Kanoo feels that the new Abdul Latif Kanoo Hall and its contents – stored in the basement – will be an opportunity to show his gratitude for a life well lived.

It is hard to know where to look first. There are pieces of pottery laid out on the floor; glass, jewellery and metal objects behind cabinets, sculptures; embroidered textiles and clothing laid out on tables and on the floors. Paintings, four or five deep, are leaning against the walls.

There are many paintings by Bahraini artists, some of which he admits he bought out of duty rather than admiration for the work. “I like to support the arts scene here,” he explains. It is an Aladdin’s cave of priceless and exquisite treasures spanning several hundred years of Islamic arts.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London would be envious, I say. It has 400 objects in its Islamic gallery; Kanoo’s is much bigger.

He won’t give an exact figure – “I don’t know, really. I don’t have and don’t give numbers” – but in 2007, a selection of 5,000 items was on display in Abu Dhabi.

“There are few in the world with a collection like this. David Khalili has one,” he says, referring to the British-Iranian billionaire and art dealer whose collection was valued at US$900 million (Dh5.5 billion) by Forbes magazine.

Kanoo specialises in works from the 8th to 13th centuries and most of the collection has been purchased from auction houses in London and New York. But he also likes to trawl through Spanish markets in search of pieces from Muslim-ruled Andalusia.

“Every item I can tell you where and how I got it and whether they ripped me off or I ripped them off,” he says, laughing. He is too discreet to reveal what his collection is worth or what his favourite piece is. “All these things are my babies, my sons and daughters, how can I choose a favourite?”

Kanoo’s love of collecting began as a child when he picked up coins and shells on the beaches of Bahrain. But his interest took a more serious turn when he travelled to England to study. He earned a degree in engineering from Imperial College London and when he wasn’t learning, he was travelling to Europe’s capitals with his family, visiting its great museums including the British Museum, the Natural History museum and the Louvre in Paris. These visits left a deep impression on the young man from an island which had just started its modernising phase after the discovery of oil in 1932.

“The West has the nicest museums but all the content came from the Middle East, from Egypt in particular, from Muslim countries. So I was determined when I went back I’d make a museum if not equal but better that will display many things.”

He put his engineering degree to good use after graduation and worked for a short time in Saudi Arabia and then Kuwait where he built bridges and schools. Upon returning to Bahrain he got a job at the ministry of housing and was instrumental in planning and building many of the kingdom’s neighbourhoods.

One of his greatest accomplishments, he says, is the Beit Al Qur’an museum which he founded in 1990 and which is built entirely with donations from the public. The nucleus is his own spectacular collection of Qurans written on a range of materials from the skin of a gazelle to a grain of rice. The collection is unrivalled: there is the first translation into Latin, completed in 1535, and the first ever printed Quran produced in Germany in 1694.

“When you expose yourself to those beautiful collections in the West I thought, ‘How can they look after them in the West but not us in the Middle East?’ I’m grateful to European institutions, they did us a favour. Now, thanks to them, people have an understanding of the development of items and materials like textiles, carpets.”

The Kanoo family business started in 1890 when Haji Yusuf bin Ahmed Kanoo, a general merchant, began importing goods from Asia and Europe. It expanded to Saudi Arabia and later the UAE, and is now owned by the sixth generation of the family.

Like the Italian merchant dynasties, such as the Medicis who patronised the Renaissance in 15th century Italy, the Kanoos are playing a role in fostering and developing the arts in the young nations of the Gulf.

Kanoo’s daughter-in-law, Hoda Kanoo, founded the Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation and has brought classical music and opera to the capital, while her husband, Mohammed, is an artist and co-owner of Ghaf, the first contemporary art gallery in Abu Dhabi.

When Kanoo began collecting Islamic art 50 years ago, it was not considered very important and only a few people were interested in buying. In the past 20 years perceptions have changed dramatically. The market has taken off – and so have the prices. A watershed moment came in 1997 when a Qatari sheikh paid £3.6 million (Dh21.9 million) for a 10th-century bronze fountainhead from Italy or Spain, the highest ever paid for a piece of Islamic art.

Kanoo says acquiring pieces is becoming difficult and expensive.

“I used to get miniature paintings for £500-£2,000 (Dh3,000-Dh12,000) but now they talk about £50,000 (Dh300,000).”

Most of the world’s major museums have had a usually small Islamic art collection, kept in a dusty, little-visited corner, but that is also changing. The Victoria and Albert in London has 400 permanent objects in its new Jameel Gallery. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is refurbishing the Islamic art galleries, which are scheduled to re-open in 2011 for its permanent collection of 12,000 objects. The Louvre will display its 2,000-item collection in a new gallery in the renovated Cour Visconti, which is expected to open next year.

Does he believe in returning artwork to its country of origins?

“It’s not about how it is or where it is,” he says. “Human civilisation shouldn’t be anchored in one unit but set in places where people can appreciate them. It is about preserving human history.”

His eyes notice a brilliant vase with a floral pattern from the Iranian Safavid period sitting on a plinth.

“Why is this here? It can fall. Here hold it,” he gives it to me as he moves the plinth to a corner and sets the vase on the carpeted floor where it won’t be knocked over.

You get a sense that Kanoo doesn’t take all this too seriously.

“These are my grandchildren’s, I made them sit down and paint,” he points to some framed crayon drawings. They are hung next to a 14th-century Turkish blue-glazed ceramic that was once part of a chandelier in a mosque.

He has tried to pass on his love of collecting fine things to his five grandchildren and indeed there is an entire antechamber in the basement devoted to the little things he has bought them when they were small children. There are spiders set in amber, rock crystals or just shells picked up in London’s markets.

“When we go to Portobello in London I’d give them money and they’d go and buy something. They’d say, ‘I’d like this rock,’ and I’d say, ‘It’s too expensive,’ and they’d say, ‘Please?’ Well, how can I refuse the beautiful Noor?” he says, referring to his granddaughter.

We wander back upstairs. He admits he has spent all his money on art. “That’s what my wife complains about,” he says with a laugh.

One year Prince Charles visited Beit Al Qur’an and Kanoo displayed a collection of Bahraini pearls. He cheekily borrowed a necklace belonging to his wife – without asking her permission.

“We had dinner with Prince Charles later that week and before leaving he said to my wife, ‘Your husband has been very naughty,’ and told her what I did.’ She just said, ‘What can I do with him?’”

The museum is closed for the summer, so specialists can carry out conservation work on the manuscripts.

In the new Abdul Latif Kanoo Hall, the public will now be able to see some of the fruits of a lifetime’s collecting.

“What can I do with it all? Lock it in a room? I want the public to appreciate it. I want people to know we have some of the most beautiful collection of Islamic art in the world. The tip of the iceberg will go on display. The idea is to have exhibitions which will not be permanent. It will be for three, six months to a year perhaps. We will specialise only in rings, or perhaps textiles or glass. It will rotate so people can appreciate the contents. I personally choose what will be on display but of course I have people who help me.”

One of the rarest items is an unglazed clay jug made in Iran in the 9th or 10th century. It is in perfect condition and the workmanship gives a hint to the style of Islamic art that would develop later on.

A favourite is an extremely rare silk carpet which covered the floor of a Moghul ruler’s private quarters. “It is so small so we know it was used in his home. Otherwise they would have used a very big carpet.”

The museum and its contents will be an opportunity for Kanoo to show his gratitude for a life well lived, he says.

“I am a man who is simple, straightforward, loves everything around me. I don’t carry ill feeling, always I look at the positive side, not the negative side. I have achieved everything I want to achieve.”

He looks content.
by Matt Kwong DUbai, UAE

Corporations rent their collections to Museums

By ROBIN POGREBIN. PEOPLE admiring Thomas Moran’s tranquil “View of Fairmont Waterworks, Philadelphia” (from about 1860) or Childe Hassam’s bucolic “Old House and Garden, East Hampton” (1917) in the show on American Impressionism at the Millennium Gate Museum in Atlanta this summer might be surprised to learn the identity of the curator: Bank of America.

Since the 1960s, when Chase Manhattan Bank assembled one of the first major corporate art collections under the guidance of its president, David Rockefeller, banks and other large companies have been acquiring fine art as a way to give their offices a cultured, dignified aura. Over time many companies have expanded these collections — with in-house curators to oversee them — and lent works to museums and other exhibition spaces, mostly for marketing reasons.

But a few corporations, including JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and UBS, have occasionally gone a step further, lending out complete shows. And Bank of America has lately gone further still, creating a roster of ready-made shows that it provides to museums at a nominal cost to them— essentially turnkey exhibitions.

Traditionally museums have been loath to allow the sponsors of an exhibition a significant role in curatorial decision making — particularly when the sponsor is a corporation, given the potential taint of commercialization and artistic compromise. And most major museums still draw the line there.

“What is crucial is curatorial independence,” said Glenn D. Lowry, the director of the Museum of Modern Art, “the ability of a curator to make his or her own decisions about what would constitute an exhibition.”

Mr. Lowry said his museum would show a corporate collection only if the majority of what was on show was donated, as was the case with the museum’s UBS show in 2005. “That’s our safeguard,” he said. “We’ve had real input because it’s a gift to the museum. What’s going to be displayed is not going back on the market.”

Rodney M. Cook Jr., president of the National Monuments Foundation, which owns the Millennium Gate, said he was unconcerned about the potential commercial implications of mounting a Bank of America show. “Is there a problem with enhancing the value of a great collection?” he said. “The quality of this collection I would say enhances the museum more than the museum enhances the collection. It’s some of the greatest pictures in America history. If our new museum can improve on the value of the bank’s collection, God bless America.”

Given the economic downturn, which has forced the cancellation, postponement or prolonging of exhibitions across the country, more small and midsize art institutions may be increasingly open to ready-made shows.

“It relieves the pressure of having to always initiate shows,” said Holly Block, executive director of the Bronx Museum of the Arts, which recently mounted “Collected Visions: Modern and Contemporary Works from the JPMorgan Chase Art Collection,” featuring about 70 works by some 60 artists, to commemorate the bank’s 50 years of collecting. “It’s very costly, and there’s not a lot of money out there right now for exhibitions. Last year was very, very hard for us to raise money. So anywhere we can create partnerships and consortiums, it’s a win-win situation.”

Ms. Block said the show also allowed the Bronx Museum to fill two galleries that otherwise would have been closed during the show’s two-month duration because of budget constraints, and to exhibit work it would not have otherwise been able to obtain. “This was an incredible opportunity,” she said. “It’s the first time we had Andy Warhol at the Bronx Museum.”

In conjunction with the show JPMorgan Chase also donated Martin Wong’s 1981 acrylic on canvas, “Brainwashing Cult Cons Top TV Star.”

Started two years ago, the Bank of America program placed 12 shows in 2008 and has placed 10 so far in 2009, with 10 more scheduled for 2010 and 6 for 2011. And there is a waiting list.

“At first we were calling museums,” said Rena DeSisto, the bank’s global arts marketing and philanthropy executive. “Now the calls are coming in to us.”

Ms. DeSisto said the bank had initially hoped to place its shows in big museums, to build credibility, but has come to realize that its collection could instead play an important role in serving institutions with fewer resources.

“Smaller community museums with more need began to ask for our program,” she said. “They just don’t have the deep pockets, and they don’t have the luxury of saying, ‘We don’t do corporate collections,’ nor do they frankly have the snobbery about it.”

At the Millennium Gate, which opened a year ago, Bank of America’s Impressionism show, which runs through Dec. 6, was hugely important to efforts to build an audience. “It’s been a great way to introduce ourselves to the city,” Mr. Cook said. “Our curators would have had to start from the beginning to catalog everything and pack and ship it, whereas the bank has all of this already done.”

From March 8 to July 19 the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey mounted “The Wyeths: Three Generations,” an exhibition of work by N. C., Andrew and Jamie Wyeth that was put together by Bank of America. At the museum — a 95-year-old institution with a collection of some 12,000 works — the endowment is down 20 percent since last year, and there have been two rounds of layoffs.

Lora S. Urbanelli, the museum’s director, said the show allowed the museum to present work it otherwise could not afford. “For us to put together a show on Wyeth would have been very expensive,” she explained, given the high cost of shipping, insurance and education materials, practically all of which Bank of America covered. The show was one of the museum’s most successful, Ms. Urbanelli said, attracting more than 80,000 visitors.

“The fact that we were able to do this exhibition so easily, especially when we’re under financial pressure, has been great,” she said.

The Association of Art Museum Directors has no policy governing shows organized by corporations and “would not be against it,” said Michael Conforti, the association’s president, “as long as the people involved felt comfortable themselves that a show complied with their curatorial standards.”

What museums need to be conscious of, art experts say, is creating the impression that these exhibitions enhance the value of corporate collections that might one day come to market. “A museum has to think very seriously about taking those shows,” said John Ravenal, president of the Association of Art Museum Curators and curator of modern and contemporary art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. “The museum, by virtue of its stature and its public role, gives legitimacy or confers a certain kind of validity to these collections when it exhibits them.

“If the collection isn’t a promised gift to the museum, then there is the potential for the museum to be used to unwittingly increase the value of a collection, whether its individual or corporate.”

If a corporation is contributing funds to a museum that shows its collection, “then it looks as if the museum’s exhibition program is for sale,” Mr. Ravenal said. “They don’t want to look like they’re selling their reputation.”

As for concerns that a bank would impose its curatorial tastes on the museum, Ms. Urbanelli of the Montclair Art Museum said Bank of America selected the works in the Wyeth show, but the museum had some say in their installation. “We were able to filter it through our own curatorial staff,” she said. “I don’t feel like we made any kind of compromises at all. If anything, they provided us with a wonderful opportunity — helped us to do something we would not have been able to do ourselves.”

Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, said he would be unlikely to accept a show put together by a corporation in part because it supplants the role of the museum’s curators. “The reason the museum exists is to make exhibitions on its own,” he said. “You have people on staff who consider themselves to be historians with highly nuanced receptors, and it’s not healthy to duplicate that by hiring out to somebody else.”

To be sure, importing a corporate-organized show might be expected to create tension between the curators at the company and those at the host museum. But Sergio Bessa, the director of curatorial and education programs at the Bronx Museum, said that his institution’s collaboration with JPMorgan “was very collegial,” and that the show gave the museum access to blue-chip artists.

“We saw an opportunity instead of a takeover,” he said. “I actually have quite a lot of respect for their vision. I was amazed: How did Chase get paintings by this painter and that painter?”

The curators at corporations and museums may be equally qualified in terms of expertise, art experts say, but their responsibilities differ. “The point of a corporate collection is to burnish the reputation of a corporation,” Mr. Ravenal said, and corporate curators are therefore “involved in that agenda.”

Given the current state of the economy and the considerable expense of maintaining and storing art, corporations might be expected to want to sell all or part of their collections, and many smaller companies are doing some divesting. Bank of America considered selling off its entire collection of about 60,000 pieces — all gathered through acquisitions of other banks with art collections — even before the downturn. But the bank determined that there were other marketing benefits to be gained from the collection.

“We have determined that a sale would result in an overall loss or a break-even, and that it is better used as a community support and marketing tool,” the bank’s Ms. DeSisto said: associating the bank with arts patronage and charitable giving, providing access to prospective clients in museum trustees and donors, offering opportunities for client entertainment.

Bank of America said its cost per exhibition can range from $5,000 to $25,000, depending on how far the artwork needs to be transported, and Ms. DeSisto said the expenditure — which she declined to quantify — has paid off.

“The income we have generated through increased business is superior to any income we could generate from selling the collection,” she said. “Attracting even one individual client can cover the entire cost of lending a turnkey exhibition.”

“Art has a very emotional pull,” she added. “If you are an art lover who supports your local museum, you are going to become positively inclined to the company that helps your museum thrive.”

Other banks too have recognized the potential for such intangible dividends. “It’s not about collecting as an investment strategy,” said Gary Hattem, president of the Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation in New York, which administers the bank’s philanthropic activities in the United States, Latin America and Canada. “It’s really about being fully engaged in the communities in which we do business.”

Deutsche Bank, with a collection of about 56,000 pieces, has made art “a major part of our identity as a bank,” said Liz Christensen, the company’s curator for the Americas. Work from the collection, including pieces by prominent artists like Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and James Rosenquist, is displayed in the public areas of the bank’s headquarters and in branches in 41 countries. And the reach of that identity is extended by its shows, like the coming “Beuys and Beyond,” featuring about 50 works on paper by Joseph Beuys and his students from the Düsseldorf Art Academy, which will travel over the next two years to museums in five countries, possibly including the United States.

Bank of America, which has four to five exhibits lent out at any one time, has a show of 30 watercolors of the American West painted by Alfred Jacob Miller in the early 1840s headed for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo., next year. It is then bound for the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, followed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Peter C. Marzio, director of the Houston museum, said he was comfortable with the collaboration. “There are people in the art field who think that somehow businessmen are evil, and you shouldn’t deal with them, but they have no trouble taking their money,” he said. “I’ve always thought that was the ultimate hypocrisy. You almost can’t do a contemporary art show without borrowing from some gallery, and those paintings are for sale. So it’s the ultimate in commercialism, if you want to look at it that way.

“I’m a big proponent of it,” Mr. Marzio added. “I prefer to see the art out there.”

Documenting your Art Collection

Excerpts from Alan Bamberger

Another aspect of good collecting is documenting your art.
You can see best how documentation really pays off in the markets for older art. Suppose, for instance, that two 19th century landscape paintings by John Doe come up for auction at the same time. They're virtually identical in size, quality, condition, date painted, and other details. The first is catalogued as "Rural Landscape"-- really exciting. The second is catalogued as "Looking North from Smith's Point, Maine, September 23d, 1876. Exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1877. Originally purchased for $100 by Robert Bob from ABC Gallery, New York City, 1877. Sold to Mary Miller in 1922 for $500, descended in the Miller family." Assuming you find both paintings equally appealing, which would you rather own? Which do you suppose will sell for more money? The second one, of course. It's like choosing between a mutt and a dog with a pedigree.

By the way, when art dealers and auction houses take on art with poor documentation, they at least do their best to come up with exciting titles. They know that even when additional information is scant or nonexistent, good titles sell art faster than boring ones or no titles at all.
The point is that good documentation positively impacts not only dollar value, but also the ability to personally appreciate and understand a work of art. If you know nothing about painting, for instance, you can only guess why it was created, what it means, where it's been. If you know its entire history, you can relate to it on a multitude of levels in addition to the purely visual.
If you think you remember everything significant about your art and don't need to physically sit down and record that information, think again. At some point, your collection will become so large that there's simply too much to remember. Either that or time will take its toll. You certainly won't be able to remember every single detail about works of art you acquired years or even decades ago.
The good news is that you can begin documenting at any time and even from a standing stop. If you own undocumented art, write down everything you can either from memory or by contacting the sellers.

Include information like the following:
* Any stories the sellers tell you.
* Any memorable moments about making the purchases.
* What the art means.
* What the subject matters are.
* How long they took to create.
* Who the artists are and what they've accomplished.
* Why the artists made them.
* When they date from.
* Whether they've ever been exhibited in public.

Don't think you have to hide anything. Far too often, collectors throw away their original gallery receipts or refuse to tell what they paid for their art, where they bought it, or what it's previous ownership history was. Reasons usually sound like these-- "If people know what I paid, my art will be worth less" or "If they find out where it comes from, they'll try to buy some themselves." These things rarely happen. If you feel protective, don't tell everything to anyone who asks, but at least save and record the information for release at some later date. Don't lose it forever. Your descendents will thank you for it.
Not only does good documentation tend to increase the value of art, but the documentation itself often has value and that value can increase. Imagine if you had an original receipt from the sale of a Van Gogh painting that changed hands in the early part of this century. Or perhaps your grandfather bought a Picasso and got an inscribed photo of Picasso handing him the painting. I'm in this end of the business and can tell you that either of these items would be worth well into the thousands of dollars today. So here's what you do:

* Save all receipts and certificates of authenticity.
* Whenever possible, get descriptive written statements from artists or dealers or both when you buy art. If they won't write something for you, have them tell you about the art and either write it down yourself or record it.
* Save all books, exhibit catalogues, gallery brochures, reviews, and the like.
* Whenever possible, photograph the artists who you collect, have them sign or inscribe catalogues or gallery invitations for you.

This information is easy to get, fun to get, it brings you closer to your art, and it only takes a few moments at the point of purchase. Over time, however, those few moments pay big dividends.
Another distinguishing feature of a superior collection is that it's organized. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. This goes back to posing the problem and then using the collection to map out the solution. Take the previous example of the "history of still life painting in Indiana." This collection can be organized in many ways including by date, by artist, by style, or by region. Or you can get even more specific. Within a topic as narrow as this there are numerous subtopics:

* Still life painting in Indianapolis organized by date.
* Still life painting in Southern Indiana showing native trees, plants and vegetables.
* Nineteenth century still life painting in Indiana by immigrant artists.
* Modernist still life painting in Indiana organized by degree of abstraction.
* Small format still life painting in Indiana organized by size.

Or you can narrow it further yet. How about a collection of still lifes painted by your favorite Indiana artist between 1980 and 1990 organized by date? The possibilities for formulating and presenting a collection are limited only by your own imagination.
The easiest way to get the hang of organizing is to go to museums. Here you see the work of professional organizers-- also known as curators. Museum shows always have starting points; they always have ending points. What happens in between the two is that viewers learn something about art. Depending on the museum or the show, you have printed, oral, or recorded guided tours that explain the way the show is organized.
Now you don't have to go so far as to physically re-arrange your house and print up a catalogue. Everything can still be displayed right where it looks its best. But organize it in your mind. Be able to walk someone through and tell them the story of how and why you've come to own all this wonderful art and how it works so well together.
This increases not only their enjoyment, but it also reinforces your chosen direction and your future buying. Additional benefits to organizing your collection are that you can see where you've been, where you're going, where you have duplication, where you're weak, what you're missing, what no longer makes the grade, and what you have to do to resolve any problems. It's not much different from your son putting together all the baseball cards of his favorite team to complete his collection.
The final step in good collecting is not the most delightful to talk about, but it is among the most necessary, and that is to plan for future owners-- whether they be museums, institutions, family members, friends, or complete and total strangers. You'd be surprised how many collectors never say a word and just think that everyone automatically knows everything they've been doing all these years. This is never the case! Think about all the people you've met who own family heirlooms that they know little or nothing about because no one ever told them. "That's the painting that hung over the sofa while I was growing up and it belonged to my grandmother. That's all I know."

The worst possible outcome for a collection occurs when the owner passes away leaving no information about the art, how much it's worth, how to care for it, or how to sell or donate it, if that's what the inheritors want. Countless collections have been resold for pennies on the dollar, given away, or even thrown in the trash because the collectors kept little or no records and left no instructions on what to do with their art.

I remember receiving a call one day from a hauler who said he had some art in a storage space and wanted me to come down and have a look. He mentioned the name of the artist who I immediately recognized as a well known Bay Area painter. It turned out that the hauler had been asked to cart away 5 major paintings by this artist which, at that time, were worth between 30 and 50 thousand dollars. The owners had simply thrown them out. And these were only a few of the treasures that this hauler had accumulated over the years absolutely free of charge, directly out of people's trash. In fact, he'd been paid to take them away!
The lesson in all this is that collectors, no matter how large or small their collections, should provide a complete list of options and instructions for those who'll inherit their art. These include names, addresses, phone numbers, procedures, dollar values, and all other particulars for selling or donating as well as for dispersal within the family.
By the way, simple appraisals with no further instructions are never enough. In fact, they often create more trouble than good. These appraisals are usually for insurance or replacement purposes which means that they're at or beyond retail. The inheritors get stuck with these values, have no idea what they mean, and often assume that that's what the art should sell for. They spend months or years beating their heads against the wall, getting nowhere, and concluding that all buyers are out to take advantage.

Cover all bases by providing insurance or replacement appraisals should your descendants decide to keep or donate the art. Also include realistic wholesale values should they decide to sell it. And don't forget those instructions-- who to call, where to go, what to do. You don't want them at the mercy of whatever dealer they happen to pull out of the Yellow Pages.
If you expect to have any influence over the long term future of your collection, lay the groundwork beginning right now. Educate your family about what you own. Instill a love and respect for what you've accomplished and accumulated all these years. Make sure that those close to you are aware of your art's value and significance. Make sure that they understand how important it is to you. You can't control the final outcome, but at least you can have your say and know that you've done your best to collect like a pro.

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.

Top 10 Most Searched Artists online-July

Andy Warhol
Liu Bolin
Banksy
Nan Goldin
Sally Mann
Jock Sturges
Marilyn Minter
Nobuyoshi Araki
Damien Hirst
Pablo Picasso
This Top 10 list says a lot about the moment in economic history and our collective unconscious. It also indicates which artists works are being researched most, a good market value/sales indicator.

Bryan Hunt, sculptor

It was a great show of sketches of his new sculptural works on Saturday August 1st at the Drawing Room in Easthampton, NY.

Books for "next generation" art collectors

Kathryn Markel, Owner of Markel Fine Arts a gallery in New York since the 1970's says: This bit of advice from my wise friend Jeanne Frank whose new book, Discovering Art : A User's Guide to the World of Collecting is a wonderful source for beginning art aficionados. You'll notice the works of art that appeal to you all have something in common. It may be softness, boldness of color, or a color itself. Perhaps you are attracted to blues, grays, or a compositional element such as the consistent use of deep space. Maybe there is a subject matter that unites all the work to which you are attracted such as landscapes, realism, abstraction, still lives, or florals.

What to avoid when buying art

"Buy from reputable art dealers" ...That's easy to say, but how can you - the uninitiated - discern between a reputable dealer and a less reputable one?

When you are purchasing art, for more than $700 for an original work on paper or $2000 for a painting, it is a good idea to work with a reputable dealer. Do your research on artnet.com or artinfo.com.

Avoid any dealer with who sells Salvador Dali, Peter Max or Norman Rockwell. Other artists to avoid are Tarkay, Erte, Earle, Jiang, Chagall (late), LeRoy Neiman, and Agam etc. They are all overpriced.

Avoid buying art from the framer in your local shopping mall. Typically, they know little about the realities of the broader art market.

Avoid galleries located in tourist areas, hotels, airports, shopping malls. The average person only thinks about buying art on vacation, some galleries take advantage of that.

Avoid the "Limited Edition Print" and dealers who sells them. They are often nothing more than overpriced, signed posters.

Avoid the dealer who talks investment and offers a "Certificate of Authenticity". Certificates of authenticity are usually phony. They lead you to believe that you have an original piece of work when in reality you may not.

Avoid buying art at auction on cruise ships. See the numerous lawsuits over counterfeit Dali prints on www.fineartregistry.com

Basic Rules of Buying Art

Rule #1- BUY WHAT YOU LOVE. Never Buy only for the sake of making an Investment.
You must love your art and allow it to give you pleasure every day.
If dollar signs are all you think about when you look at it, it's not good for your soul or for the art.
In the very unlikely case your art happens in increase in value, consider yourself lucky that you did not have to pay more for the same pleasure. 99% of all artwork never goes up in value: Like a car, many pictures decline 50% in value the minute you walk out of the gallery.

The art market fluctuates the same as every other market: For example, big collectors who paid top dollar for art in the late 80's were left with unwanted inventory in the early 90's when the Japanese stopped buying art and Wall Street declined.
Art is not liquid. Typically, a dealer who sold you something, will not not take it back five years later. They have new work to sell by the artist, and does not want to deal with older works. Unless, the artist has substantially appreciated in value.

Rule #2 - DO YOUR RESEARCH

Learning about art takes time and effort just like learning about anything else. Look at art constantly and develop your eye, so that you learn what you like and why. The more you look, the more you'll come to understand the difference between what is good and what is not. This might not change the kind of art you like, but will help you distinguish between the good (of what you like) from the bad. Note the "Isn't it amazing" picture (Thomas Kincaid for example) and how many there are....
For the uninitiated, a realistic oil that looks like a photo can be an amazing - How did the artist do that? Well, it's actually quite simple. Anyone can learn if they have time and patience.

Rule #3 - TRUST YOUR TASTE

At the end of the day, after looking and looking, you must trust your own taste. Good art comes with many different syles and subjects. The style and subject matter that really speak to you depends on how well your personality converges with that of the artist. You might have an eclectic sensibility and appreciate many kinds of good art, you might like the romantic landscape, colorful expressionistic painting, or Zen-like minimalism. No matter what kind of art really grabs you, do not be afraid to mix different things in one space. In the end your general taste will connect them all.

Rule #4 - LOOK FOR VALUE.

Although you are NOT thinking "investment potential" (you're not, are you?), you should be thinking VALUE.

You do not want to be taken advantage of, and in the art world, it's easy to spend lots of money on junk. You must go through the learning process. If you're spending under $700 for an original work on paper or under $2000 for a good - sized painting, don't worry. Use these numbers as general guidelines for buying artwork, and remember buy anything that pleases you and is affordable.

Remember, artists have to make money too. A typical artist who makes one watercolor a week and sells it directly for $500 each, makes $24,000 a year. Furthermore, she probably has an expensive Masters of Fine Arts degree, plus the costs of postcards, stamps, supplies, paper, rent, and framing. Most likely, she has a day job and is caught in the classic artist-bind: the artist has to make enough to live, and at the same time, find time to paint. It's a hard life, so give her a break and don't complain about her trying to sell an original work of art for more than $300. Pay her gladly.

Rule #5 - BUY FROM reputable art DEALERS

Scared to Buy Original Art?

Are you are an intelligent, affluent, sophisticated consumer who knows nothing about contemporary art or how to buy it?
You are not alone, and it is not your fault. The art market is intimidating, confusing, and rife with over-priced works.....

You are justified in being confused and cautious. Most of my neighbors think nothing of spending thousands on window treatments, but are terrified of buying a $500 piece of art. Unlike other cultural experiences, such as the theatre or dance, buying art is not a transient event. If you make a mistake, it hangs there on your wall proclaiming to the world your lack of taste. This fact scares the hell out of most people which is why they stick with their posters from college or pictures they pick up on vacation. Thus, you often see exquisitely decorated houses without good art. Interior Designers are sometimes just as intimidated and unsophisticated as you.

There's only one step - LOOK, LOOK, and LOOK some more.

Learn About Art, Learn About What You Like, Learn About Yourself.

"I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like"... To a certain extent, it is true, but remember the corollary - "The more art you see, the more you know what you like."
Everyone has a different reaction to the images they see, depending on their personal psychological makeup.
Look at all different styles of art with an open mind. As you do, write down the names of the artists you like the best.





Surf the web for images and take note of your favorites. There are wonderful web resources to find good art: artnet.com, artinfo.com, artforum.com, artnews.com, artnewspaper.tv.

VISIT FINE ART MUSEUMS and libraries. Every town has a local museum associated with the city or a local university. Local libraries have art books and magazines to browse.

TAKE COURSES at local universities, attend lectures sponsored by local art organizations and museums.

VISIT THE LOCAL GALLERIES- Find galleries through listings in the local papers and local arts organizations. While these galleries might have the best of your local artists try to avoid the tacky galleries. (Click here to learn how to spot a tacky gallery)javascript:void(0)

ASK QUESTIONS when visiting galleries - questions such as "Can you tell me about the artist? Do you have other things by her that I may look at"? Ask whatever questions you can think of, and don't let youself be intimidated even if you're dressed in sweats and sneakers.

SIGN GALLERY GUESTBOOKS - You'll receive notices of art openings. Most art openings are casual affairs and it's easy to meet collectors, the artist, and find out more about the local art world. Openings are a great opportunity to ask more questions. People in the art world love to talk and give out information.

SUBSCRIBE TO MAJOR ART MAGAZINES
www.markelfinearts.com

Affordable Art online

You love art, and you know what you like, but you don’t have a financier’s funds. So is it still possible to be a collector? The answer is an overwhelming YES. And if you have any spare cash, an economic downturn is an excellent time to buy. With fewer buyers in the market, there is actually a wider variety of interesting, affordable pieces available.

Here, some great places to start building your collection:

Invisible Exports’ Artist of the Month Club
www.artistofthemonthclub.com
The Artist of the Month Club "is a wonderful way to start a collection — or to add to a growing one — with the help of a dozen of the country's most plugged-in curators, a kind of dream team of art advisers. It's a perfect way to acquaint yourself with the work of great living artists, many just on the verge of real breakouts and others who have already received wide acclaim,” Needleman says. She adds that new collectors don’t have to wait until January to sign up; late subscribers can still join and receive the full 2009 collection.


TINLARK 6671 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, Calif. www.tinlark.com “Carefully curated, affordable art — that’s what I do,” gallery director Cris McCall told us, and she has the prices — starting at $25! — and selection to prove it. If you can’t make it to Hollywood, look for Tinlark online or at smaller art fairs. McCall recommends works by Drew Beckmeyer, Kirsten Tradowsky, Wesley Younie, Nathaniel Klein, and Nancy Baker Cahill, whose pieces sell in the $200 to $300 range. “Their pieces are compositionally exciting, well executed, conceptually smart, and funny,” she says. Also keep your eyes open for Brooks Salzwedel’s haunting graphite, tape, and resin landscapes, which start around $275.

CHARMINGWALL
This little gallery, standing alone amid the tattoo and novelty shops in New York’s West Village, offers a curated selection of quirky, open-edition prints that never go above $80 — and that includes framing and matting. How does Charmingwall maintain such affordable prices? The owners are in the boutique printing business, so production costs are minimal, and the gallery maintains personal relationships with all of its artists, who approve each print, according to gallery director Katie McClenahan. The prints are available online too, and the gallery has small monthly exhibitions of original art priced anywhere from $50 to a few thousand per work. “We’re trying to get up-and-coming artists out there and provide affordable art for the masses,” McClenahan says. Less than two years old, Charmingwall has already attracted media attention from the likes of New York magazine and DailyCandy.

ETSY, Rob Kalin dropped out of art school and founded Etsy in 2005. The result is an addictive online marketplace where you can buy anything from original artworks to handmade jewelry and clothing. According to Kalin, art is the third most popular category on the site and accounts for 10 percent of Etsy’s overall sales. “This is about the idea that art is a craft,” Kalin says. Etsy’s selection isn’t curated, so quality is hit or miss, and it can be time-consuming to page through its thousands of offerings. Still, the site features some great finds.

TINYSHOWCASE
True to its name, the four-year-old Web site Tiny Showcase showcases prints that are, well, tiny. You can sign up for its newsletter and snatch up a limited-edition piece each Tuesday for minimal dough — from around $20 to $100. But you have to be nimble — the works usually go within hours. Imagine covering an entire wall with these exquisite little pieces, all printed on archival paper in ink. And the best part is that a percentage from each work sold goes to a charity of the artist’s choice.
By Jacquelyn Lewis, Marisa Rindone
Published: July 29, 2009