What to keep in mind when buying art?

When buying art to home, there are quite a few things to keep in mind. Firstly, you need to decide if you want to have – a statement piece or a decoration?

LOCATION - where do you want the artwork to go. Is there enough room to properly see the artwork or perhaps you just need a generic decoration instead of an artwork?

PREFERENCE – what kind of art do you like? Is it abstract or depictive, painting or print or drawing? What kind of size are you after? What colours do you prefer? What is the overall ‘feel’ you want the artwork to have?

BUDGET - This is good to keep in head when browsing, but also directs you where to look. If your budget is say ￡100, then there is no point to go to the commercial art gallery and look for an original painting which is framed and 25 by 15 inches. However, you can get perhaps a limited-edition digital print[1] of that painting.

WHERE TO BUY - This is very much linked to your budget, but also, how much time do you have to look. We can go easily go online and buy something with next day delivery. However, would this have the same value (I’m not referring to a monetary value) than buying directly from the artist?

Once you have thought about these it will be much easier to find the suitable one which will compliment your home.

First published in HEM Life February 2020.

[1] LIMITED EDITION digital print – Usually, it means that it is a reproduction of an original painting. Limited edition means that there are only a certain number of reproductions available. For example, you can see ‘1/10’ written under the image. This means that this is the first edition of 10 and that there are overall 10 copies available.