Why Invest in Pop Art Paintings?

Pop art emerged in the 1950's and 1960's and became a phenomenon in America in particular, New York. It began bridging of the gap between high and low end art. It broke down the established qualities afforded to art through the preceding Abstract Expressionism movement. Pop art paintings focus on the mass produced, everyday objects, notions and ideas of consumerism, in particular the 1960's. The artists created their works as a reflection of the city they lived in and they focused on celebrating and participating in the mass culture at the same time as reflecting it.

The most widely celebrated artist from the pop art movement was Andy Warhol. Although Warhol was painting and exhibiting in the decade prior, he burst onto the New York art scene in the early 1960's and his career spanned three decades. He took photographs of everyday objects from our popular culture (hence the name Pop Art) and used them in repetition, sometimes stitching them together. He predominantly painted his now famous works along with screen printing and other media to portray his city's iconography. Apart from the famous Campbell's soup can series, he also worked with the ideas of fame and celebrity, in particular Marilyn Munroe. This exploration of consumerism may have been influenced in part from his early career as a commercial illustrator. Warhol drew our attention to the ways in which media hero worship, materialism, overconsumption and political manipulation rampant in our society at the time. This pioneering work is still relevant today, maybe more than eve

History shows us that investing in Pop art paintings yields high dividends. Recently the Financial Times reported that in 1986, an anonymous collector bought a 1962 Andy Warhol painting '200 One Dollar Bills' for $385,000. It sold for $43.8m in 2009.

Cathy Naso was lucky enough to receive a self portrait from Andy Warhol in 1965, she was his receptionist at the time. According to the Financial Times it recently sold for $6.1m.
Not everyone is lucky enough to these paintings as gifts, however many collectors see the advantages of investing in them today.

The ideal time to buy pop artworks would have been in the 1960's. However, as that is now impossible, the next best time to buy pop art paintings is when the economic climate has weakened. It is best to watch the market for some time and notice which ones are selling, where they are selling and for how much. It is also worth noticing who is currently buying these artworks, where they are buying them and how much they are paying.

Collectors collect for many reasons. Not every collector buys paintings because they love them, some buy them in order to make money over time. It depends on your reasons for collecting artworks, in particular pop art paintings. There are many collectors who buy purely to make money on them. However there are also many collectors who love collecting pop art paintings because they love that these draw a parallel between consumerism and cultural processes and/or they love the aesthetic qualities of these artworks.

About the Artist: Cathy Condon is an Australian artist based in the UK and Europe who works primarily in an abstract style. Her blog at http://www.catharticgallery.com chronicles her life as a travelling and working artist in the world and her day-to-day influences and impressions.

Cathy Condon
http://www.catharticgallery.com
Copyright 2010.

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