Buying and deciding
Buying art for the first time
The most common question at our appointments is not about provenance. In one wording or another it is: will I look foolish if I put this in the wrong place.
The answer is shorter than you would expect.
You do not need knowledge, you need a reaction
In front of a sculpture something happens or it does not. You walk around it once and want another turn, or you want to move on. That is a more reliable signal than any amount of research.
Art history helps with understanding, not with choosing. We do not explain the title or the artist’s intention to you, because doing so only walls up your own perception. What the work means to you is your business.
What you can actually get wrong
Not your taste. The size, the distance and the ground beneath.
A work that sits well in a sculpture garden can disappear in front of a six metre wall. That is not a failure of taste, that is scale, and we work it out beforehand.
How much height a plot can carry is set out under What size a garden can carry.
What you may ask without any embarrassment
- Whether you may touch it. Yes. With most works that is half the point.
- Whether the children will climb it. Tell us in advance and we anchor it accordingly.
- Whether you can get rid of it again. Yes, see What you should know.
- Whether you can move it later. Usually yes, with some effort.
Come by and see what happens.