Buying artwork for the office

Buying artwork for the office

We were recently asked to recommend places to buy artwork for an office (we know a lot of artists). You can, in fact, with relatively little effort buy really fine works of art that will give you endless pleasure, and cost relatively little. The process itself, visiting with the artists and looking at their work, is itself generally a pleasure, and the small amount of time it takes will almost always give you a more pleasant working environment that merely calling facilities management and asking them to fill up the wall.

In addition, by buying works of artists who are not so famous that the price has escalated beyond all reason, you get to spend your art budget on works that you really like, rather on works largely bought for the signature, or because they fill the space and more or less blend with the furniture.

Plus, the economics of going directly to the artist and not through a wholesaler or a dealer or a decorator are significant. Artwork is usually marked up from 30% to 100% as is passes from the artist to the wholesaler to the dealer to the public. A $12,000.00 retail sculpture may be purchased from the artist for approximately $4,000 and the buyer has no worries about provenance, and the notorious art dealers trading in forgeries – you purchased an original from the source – the artist!

Two artists of our acquaintance whose work is of collector-quality are the sculptor George Pissarro and the pastelist Catherine Nicodemo, both of whom are friends, and both of whom reside in New York City.

George Pissarro is one of the best carvers of stone today. His works are both technically excellent and extremely sensual. George Pissarro can be reached at 1-212-541-5829.

Catherine Nicodemo is unusual for a pastelist, in that her technique is so unique that some initially think that the medium is something other than pastel. In addition, the works are often much larger than one would expect from a pastel. The works are imaginative and subtle, generally conjuring up a story in the mind of the viewer, and the images frequently burst out of the confines of the traditional space indicated by the paper. Her work may be seen at http://www.catherinenicodemo.com/, and she may be reached at [email protected].