The Business of Art

The business of art is conducted much like any other commercial venture in which something is bought, sold, or traded. Yet a work of art is not a commodity in the ordinary sense. Its value can shift radically in an instant, depending on the impact of collectors, dealers, curators, critics, or specialists. Their appraisals of historic, intellectual, and aesthetic values affect a work's monetary value in the marketplace.

Recognizing their potential as research tools for the study of provenance (a work of art's history of ownership), and the history of aesthetics, taste, patronage, and collecting, the Getty Research Institute acquires the records of various players in the art market:

The role of the dealer, as middleman between artist and collector, has evolved into that of a dominant art-world figure who can affect, and insome ways control, private and public perceptions of the history of art.

A collector may be motivated to attain works of art for a variety of reasons: aesthetic preferences, investment, speculation, scholarly study, or even as a social outlet.

Artists also participating in the art market, sometimes act as agents, dealers, critics, and collectors.

The scholar can exert considerable influence on the art market. As an advisor to museums, individual collectors, auction houses, and other agencies, they validate works of art and can determine and set aesthetic and market valuations.

Source: The Getty Research Institute