Virginia Miller: How To Collect Contemporary Art
Miami Art Gallery Owner and Dealer Gives Advice on Collecting
How do you get down from an elephant? When the elephant is a work of art, and the down is steadily appreciating investment, the answer is simple: You don’t. You get down from a duck.
“Acquire only works that you love and will enjoy living with—that way, you can’t lose,” says Miami gallery owner Virginia Miller. “The investment will be in the enjoyment you have received from it over the years.”
Collecting Contemporary Art in the Age of the Internet
Virginia Miller has curated more than 300 exhibitions in the past four decades years, many at her eponymous gallery. “The Internet changed the way people buy art because potential buyers now visit galleries and auction houses from their homes 24/7,” she points out. This accessibility has created a demand that is, she says, “pushing the prices up in some sectors of the market more rapidly than I’ve seen in my 40 years as an art dealer.”
While Miller acknowledges that starting a collection can be intimidating for people for reasons, including “the attitudes they are greeted with in some galleries,” she says the secret is to make relationships with reputable dealers. “They are in the market every day and can save a potential collector a great deal of time and money,” she says. “No one has a crystal ball, so every bit of inside information that a reputable dealer can glean from his or her experience and trusted sources may prove priceless.”
Art Dealer Virginia Miller's Own Collection Has Appreciated Enormously in Value
An aspiring collector doesn't necessarily need a bottomless wallet, Miller says. For example, Alfred Stieglitz's photogravure, “The Steerage,” was priced at $1,500 when she exhibited at her “History of Photography” show. Today it goes for about $15,000.
“We have several paintings in our present show at $2,200, by an artist that is featured prominently in the new directory of contemporary Chinese artists,” Miller says. “At those prices, the question is not whether they will appreciate in value, but only how much and how soon.”
Work she's curated that’s appreciated: An Alice Neel watercolor from a 1978 gallery show has gone up 5,000 percent; a Richard Pousette-Dart painting that has increased 2,000 percent; and Chinese art whose price has tripled in four months.
“Given the present explosive state of the Chinese contemporary market,” she says, work by almost any artist appearing in the “2007 Chinese Contemporary Art Document” is likely to appreciate.
Alfred Stieglitz's The Steerage
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