How I started to become an art collector
Over the years I managed to put together quite a nice art collection. By no means do I have one of the world's great collections but I do have works by some well respected, if not world famous, artists. This collection has given me a great deal of joy over the years. There is nothing quite like finding that next great piece to add to your collection.
The way I got started as an art collector was that I had always had an interest in the subject, I studied art and I just enjoyed going to galleries and museums. There was just this
natural desire to own some of these works of art that I was seeing. In the early days I really couldn't afford to by pieces of art so I mainly bought posters of the great artists and
hung them on my bedroom wall. At the time my knowledge of art wasn't all that sophisticated so I was pretty much limited to the world's most famous artists. Obviously I was never going to own a piece by one of them.
As I got more mature so did my tastes in art. Instead of just going to the top museums to see the works of the all time greats I started heading to the smaller galleries to see the works of the up and coming and lesser known artists (or spent hours on Youtube checking out art channels). It was while I was visiting these galleries that it occurred to me for the first time that I could actually own original pieces of art. After seeing some paintings that I liked and that were being offered at a price that I could actually afford I decided to take the plunge and buy my first piece.
Buying this first painting quickly lead to a desire to buy more. I started spending even more time at galleries looking for artists with a style that I liked, and started joining groups of likeminded people like the Art Collectors Club by Park West Gallery. I also started to spend time visiting auctions and looking online for paintings of the artists that I liked. It didn't take long before I had acquired quite a large collection of paintings. Admittedly my collection pales into comparison next to the great collections of the world but I do like the pieces that I own.
Over the years I have started to become more selective in the things that I buy, when I first started I was buying paintings just because I liked the way they look. Now I look for specific artists and for paintings that will go with the other paintings in my collection (I'm even expanding into other forms of art). Having a coherent collection that goes together has become important to me rather than just having a group of random pieces that have nothing in common. This has reduced the number of pieces that I buy but the ones I do get are of a higher quality.