By Reed V. Horth for ROBIN RILE FINE ART
Would it surprise you to know that despite our business being located in South Florida, the vast majority of our collectors are in the Northeastern United States, Canada, Asia, or Europe? In fact, we have never met the vast majority of our buyers face-to-face. This is a small world (after all) and through the use of modern media and technology we have been able to curate full collections in private homes, museums and private gardens around the world. Mexico, Canada, France, Italy, Greece, Germany, Hong Kong, Spain, UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Lebanon, Portugal among others, without meeting many of these clients firsthand. While many people never have considered art-purchasing as something which could be accomplished remotely we have become the forerunners in this arena. Many clients are acclimatized to the brick-and-mortar gallery experience. Many buyers must see the artworks firsthand, move around them, interact with them in the flesh. We consider these clients “passion-based” buyers. Many others understand the hallmarks of what they like about individual artists and their individual works and purchase based on this knowledge similarly purchasing a pre-construction home from an architect, condo or builder. These clients are considered “pragmatic-buyers” or “investment-buyers”. If you know the source (i.e. architect, condo or builder), you feel confident in the home based on their prospectus of what you will receive. By the same token, if you know us as art dealers and curators, you can feel confident that the art you see is what you will receive. This paradigm presents a diametric shift in the buying and art-investment mentality, the ability to see not only the passion of art collecting, but also the practical benefits from taking your time and deliberating.
How much time do you have to spend sourcing artwork?
Obviously, we enjoy meeting our clients face-to-face. Many become our friends over time. But, the world is such that our clients do not always have the time or inclination to travel to visit us in Miami, or we cannot visit every city our clients reside in. Dealing primarily with pragmatic buyers more than emotional buyers, our clients generally have very little time for the search and procurement of their art collections, particularly when it comes to investment-level artworks. Interior designers pour through volumes of materials whittling down to only those products, fabrics, motifs that will appeal to you for inclusion in your home. They essentially weed the wheat from the chaff. Similarly, there are simply not enough hours in your day to scour the world for art suitable for your collection, budget and aesthetic proclivities. Literally dozens of man-hours can be spent in the locating and vetting of a world-class piece of artwork for our clients. Once an artwork is located on your behalf, we waste very little of your time securing it, contracting it and getting it into your home of office.
Oftentimes our collectors will have seen artworks from an artist we feature during their travels. Perhaps they saw a wonderful Salvador Dali watercolor in a museum in Spain. Obviously, this work will not be available for purchase as it is owned by the museum. Knowing of our expertise and connections in this genre, the client will ask us to locate comparable works from Dali on the open market. This is often a time-consuming venture in the locating, vetting and contracting of premier works from such a prominent international master. Further, prices for original works can escalate quickly depending on various criteria, including who authenticates the works. Therefore, we make certain each work we feature passes certain criteria regarding authenticity, price and international clearance, the clients will purchase from us remotely and with confidence.
Opportunities are not always geographically convenient.
Sometimes the best deals are not in your neighborhood and must be sought out on your behalf. Your local brick-and-mortar gallery may have some spectacular works, but they may not be as broad of tastes, pricing or expertise levels as you might command for your collection. Being in art sales for the past 16 years, we have developed in-roads with a broad spectrum of private collectors, museums, auction houses, publishers and dealers who are aware of our client’s collecting tastes and of our particular genres of expertise. This allows us to hear about the best deals before anyone else. Perhaps you saw Richard MacDonald’s spectacular “Doves” bronze sculpture in a gallery over the past many years and always desired to own it. Essentially, with all things being equal, you wish to purchase the best example of this work for the best possible price. Given our connections, we have achieved the best price for the work which can be located on the open market. While not perhaps in your neighborhood, our access provides you an opportunity not afforded to you by galleries in your locale.
Recently, we had the chance to travel to the Canary Island to meet clients who had purchased Richard MacDonald’s “Nureyev”. The clients themselves were wonderful and hospitable, and their home which sits off the Western coast of Africa, sat atop a picturesque cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean to the West. Their remote location in the Eastern Atlantic ocean made it seem counter-intuitive to seek out a sculpture from a prominent American sculptor in Miami, FL USA. However, after having seen the work elsewhere and developing a dialogue with us, the pragmatic and conscientious collectors were able to obtain the work for an opportune price irrespective of either their location or the origin location. “Nureyev” held a place of prominence in the burgeoning collection and waited reverently for us when we arrived.
Further, there is nothing to indicate that a premier work from an international master such as Pablo Picasso (or Salvador Dali, Robert Indiana, Rene Magritte, Mark Rothko, Giorgio de Chirico, Claude Monet or others) may be located in your vicinity. Many of these works will reach art hubs such as Paris, London or New York, but not smaller venues such as Atlanta, Montreal or Dublin. Access to these works is exceedingly rare as most must be kept tightly sealed in order not to spoil them on the open market or dilute the artist’s presence in the world market. The international city Miami, when combined with our active travel schedule, allows us to quietly access rare works, collections and private collectors without compromising the integrity of the work itself. Our access… is YOUR access.
Who can you trust online?
Given new technologies and the preponderance of business that is conducted interstate and internationally via the internet, it should come as no surprise that a few firms have distinguished themselves as forerunners in the field of remote sales. By extension, there are many charlatans who take advantage of remote connections in an unethical fashion.
When first assembling an online model for a former gallery in 2003, the transition hurdle to overcome was from how to go from a brick-and-mortar gallery with foot traffic to an entirely online model with no foot traffic. Through substantive trial and error and some fortuitous resourcefulness we were able to bring the vision of an entirely online gallery presence into fruition. Due to our efforts, we were a part of assembling the Salvador Dali bronze collection for Carlos Slim’s Museo Soumaya collection in Mexico City, as well as private museum collections in Greece, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Hong Kong and others. In launching ROBIN RILE FINE ART in 2008, we were able to take many of these lessons and apply them to our own model. For example, trust and a strong referral-base became critical in building rapport with new clients. The recommendations we had from prior clients and the ability to dialogue around a client’s thoughts, perspective, concerns, design aesthetic and the like allowed us to expand what we offered to them because we then knew substantively more than if a client was merely purchasing a single item from us. The online model actually lent itself to us learning and listening to clients more and transitively, to building more into their collection through this knowledge base. We also ask each of our satisfied clients to refer a friend to us, which generally they do. This first-hand account of our performance provides confidence that what we say is what we mean, and that you will be treated with the same respect and clarity as they were.
While we have not yet been able to meet many of these clients in person as yet, we remain dedicated to meeting all of our clients in the future. This is the best way for us to maintain these contacts and develop a further reputation as being the premier resource for private, online, museum-level art purchasing.
Anecdotally: We live in an online world. The vast majority of our world functions in internationally connected way. My wife and I met on Match.com in 2006. While many of our friends thought it gauche at the time, this method of meeting people has gained more and more acceptance in the past 6 years we have been together. Despite our close proximity, we might never have had another way to find each other, develop a rapport and meet, if not for the online presence of Match.com.
If I can find the love of my life online, does it not also serve to reason that you can find an artwork you love online too?
