When you need something nice to decorate your home.
How much are you willing to pay to cover the bare spaces on your walls? There are lots of options across an incredible range of prices. You can go with prints or some photos, but original paintings certainly add a lot more class. I don’t want fake art on my walls.
The price of original art can actually be reasonable — it all depends on where and what artist you buy. Personally, I prefer my artists to be obscure, because obscurity is cheap. Every painting I own is an original or a low-numbered edition, and I haven’t paid more than $10,000. In fact, most I picked up for under $2,000, and quite a few cost less than $500.
So how do you pick up an original painting for under $500? Street art. I go to places where artists congregate and want to make deals — West Broadway in Soho, the Piazza Navarro in Rome, or the Plaza del Museo in Seville are three of my favorites. We’ve also picked up a few pieces over the years from small galleries in towns which have a reputation for such, such as Charleston, S.C. and Cortona, Italy. Buying on the street generally means you will get stuck with having to purchase a frame, so the total price is closer to $1,500 rather than $500, but still not a bad price. (I have to learn how to make frames.)
If you have an eye, you might get lucky — some obscure artists become famous, and so you may end up owning a piece that’s actually worth something. If not, well, you still get to enjoy it — provided that you purchased a piece that you like, which is the only reason why you should ever buy a painting.
