Art Versus the Stock Market
by Connie Tom
With the instability of the economy these last few years, more people are turning to art as an investment of their money. As an artist myself and as a collector of other artist's work, I am an avid reader of art magazines. Two of which are Art of the West Magazine and Southwest Art Magazine. In reading the magazines and watching the internet, I enjoy watching the trend of the buying market of art.
Several years ago, a friend of mine who owns an art gallery, was well stocked with inventory, of both of original paintings and Limited Edition prints. It was one of those slow periods when sales had slowed but the bills hadn't, a dealer came by and was looking through her inventory and offered to buy all 20 Limited Edition prints of the same painting, if she would sell all of them at a low price of $40 each. This was less than she had paid for the prints, but $800 would pay the electric bill, so she sold them. They happened to be the Limited Edition prints of the "Navajo Madonna" by Olaf Weighorst. The very next year, the edition sold out and the prints were sought after for $7,000 apiece. I'll let you do the math. The original sold to Shell Oil Company for well over $400,000.
The legendary Mr. Howard Terpning says it's the secondary market that drives his prices up on his paintings. He tells of his earlier years in 1987 of pricing "The Ghost Dance - Hope Springs Eternal" painting at the Cowboy Artist of America show at $125,000 because he wanted to keep that painting in the family and knew no one would pay that much money for a painting. In his words from an article in January/February 2006 issue of Art of the West Magazine, he says, "We wanted to keep that painting in the worst way, but I had committed to do it and it was going to be in the catalogue. I thought, if I price this thing high enough, people are going to be so turned off that we'll be able to keep it. Everybody said I was crazy to put a price like that on it. I was amazed at the response to it. A collector bought it and eleven months later sold it for $312,500. In that same article, he tells of another collector who was so excited to buy his painting, but turned around and sold it in two hours and made a $30,000 profit.
Another artist I watch closely is Morgan Weistling. Several years ago, one of his paintings was in one of Altermann Art Auctions of which I was watching online. The estimated selling price was around $8,000 and starting bid was $2,000 as I recall. The bid sky rocketed to over $40,000. Less than five years later, his paintings have reached almost $300,000.
Martin Grelle is another one. He had his share of rejections in earlier years, but when he finally broke through, his sales records have been phenomenal. When he was hoping to be able to sell a painting for $100,000, he did that... and less than five years later, he has sold paintings this year in 2008 for $382,000 at the Couer d' Lene Art Auction and $402,000 at this year's Prix de West Fine Art Exhibition and Sale in Oklahoma City, OK.
I love watching Carrie Ballantyne's career and work grow also. She sold out at this year's Prix de West Show.
I also adore reading about G. Harvey... about not only his wonderful sales at the auctions, but also all the good that he does with donating the proceeds of prints to such worthy causes as Focus on the Family and Teen Challenge.
So to sum it up, many people are turning to buying paintings as an investment in lieu of the stockmarket, because of it's instability in the last few years. At least you have a beautiful work of art you can enjoy looking at everyday and you have your investment in hand.... not at the disposal of someone else's hands. Yes, the stock market has been frightening this year, but did you hear about the new record set by the Couer d' Alene Art Auction in July 2008 of $37 Million, eclipsing last year's sales by $2 million? And if the prices before mentioned are above what a person can invest in, it might be worth looking in to finding an emerging artist, whose work they like and whose work is doubling and tripling in price in a relatively short period of time, and invest in them. And in time, you just might be pleasantly surprised with your investment!
Connie Tom
Willard, MO
