Why ‘Rare Art’ is a Poor Inflation Hedge Asset

By Brendan Metcalfe...... The story of art as an inflation hedge is a fairly simple one; there will always be rich people and rich people always want art. Fair enough. So how does one invest in art? It seems to me that there are two types of investment art. The first is investing in ‘emerging’ artists speculating that the artist will receive greater demand in the future. The second is investing in ‘brand name’ artists like Picasso or Van Gogh expecting that demand for high-caliber art will receive equal or greater demand in future.  Emerging artists are more high risk, high return where brand names mostly just maintain their value. I have found that, although art certainly...