I’ve belatedly considered that it might be useful to indicate here when I’ve updated any of the Collecting Guides.  Well, perhaps you might like to know that  I’ve just expanded the discussion on the fading of prints, which you could find in the “Collecting Pitfalls” chapter of The Guide to Collecting Picasso’s Prints, just a [...]

“The more I see, the less I know.” – Michael Franti
Weeks have passed, but I still can’t seem to get my mind around Giacometti’s 100 million dollar man.  A 104.3, to be exact.  (As you may have guessed, I didn’t have the same mental block when it came to Picasso’s 100 million dollar boy.)  I [...]

Last week my six-year-old came home from school loaded up with books from the school book fair but nonetheless wanting to Amazon another, How to Read People’s Minds.  Now, among other considerations, I try to evaluate my kids’ “needs” (they always classify their wants as such) through the prism of educational merit.  From that perspective, [...]

There are those collectors who love the art no matter how small, and there are those who won’t look at a piece if it doesn’t reach a certain size.  This “column” is for the former.  Having addressed the merits of collecting small art works before, I would now like to further the discussion by drawing [...]

A collector on whose behalf I am about to bid at auction just posed the following question: how many years back has the art market now retreated? To provide a satisfactory answer, one would have to do a formal statistical analysis, for which I have neither the tools, time, nor inclination.  Shooting from the hip, [...]

What is it with me and Picasso bronzes?  Judging by my last two unsuccessful attempts, it looks like I’m fated to be the eternal underbidder.  Last year I did my best to catch a small dove, but it got away for around 217K or so (http://ledorfineart.com/blog/?p=100 ).  This time around, I was hot on the [...]

Here’s what’s been going on in the Picasso market, in broad brushstrokes, and as I see it.  A number of collectors have sat on the sidelines while waiting for the art market to crash and compelling bargains to appear.  Well, many prices have come down, and there have been occasional bargains.  But the bottom hasn’t [...]

After talking with a prospective client yesterday, it occurred to me that he was nearing a decision between three or more Picasso linocuts and aquatints without the benefit of viewing any of them in the flesh.  And that, despite the fact that all or nearly all of the art was in the inventory of dealers [...]

What, the Dow’s up a lousy 20% and suddenly everyone’s buying art again?  In the past investors usually behaved as if they consider art more as a hedge to the securities market, or so it has usually seemed to me.   (Of course for a collector, the investment potential of art is mostly a rationalization—we collectors [...]

When clients ask me to appraise their Picassos, I first explain that the auction record is a more useful guide for valuation than gallery prices. There are a number of reasons for this. A gallery can mark a piece up just as high as it wants, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the piece will [...]