Student art may not be as appreciated as it could be. Indeed, student and recent graduate works could be an undiscovered gold mine. After all a beautiful piece of art is a beautiful piece art.
When we first started putting on art exhibitions, we were advised to stay away from students and unknowns. I never really understood this at the time. I appreciate that a commission from an established artist with an established commercial value would likely be bigger, but I rather like the idea of building something, introducing an artist and promoting their work.
Upon his graduation an artist friend, that we had exhibited before, wanted to clear out his cupboard, as it were, so we organised an auction of some of the choices pieces of his work that he had accumulated during his three years at university, with a percentage going to the Charity Street Kids International.
We did an interview before the auction (shown below), to familiarise those who didn’t know him and to ‘build an atmosphere’ and hopefully get people in the mood to bid.
The auction was an amazing success. We sold six of the seven paintings that were on offer, and started something. This has lead us to begin planning for some student and recent graduate auctions with Gabriel Enterprise Charity and Friends of Bethnal Green for the Bethnal Green Art festival in October 2018.
Working with Gabriel Fine Arts, we’ll be arranging some auctions to showcase and introduce recent graduate and student artists…and maybe help launch a career or two…
If you have an eye for a bargain, or want to browse what’s on offer or simple like the atmosphere of a live auction, you might like to come along to one of our events, have a glass of wine, some good conversation, make a bid if you like, we always let people know when we’ve reached the reserve so you can have some fun and bid in safety if you want to try it with out committing yourself to buying if you’re not ready.
I’d rather get it for £400 rather than wait and buy it when it’s £4000.
Anyone interested in investing might want to investigate, or anyone looking for a nice painting or piece, or someone with a space on a wall somewhere that could do with up lifting, might like to come along.
Up coming events will be advertised here and on Gabriel Fine Art’s web site as well as the Bethnal Green Art Festival web site and others.
It’s a very interesting place to be. Seeing an artists career as it starts and maybe pick up an interesting piece before they become expensive.
Andrew