How to Make Money Spotting the Art World’s Next Big Star
- Overlooked artists are seeing careers and prices on the rise
- Paintings by McArthur Binion are up 300% in three years
Photographer: Sean Drakes/CON/LatinContent Editorial via Getty Images
Collector Dennis Scholl never heard of McArthur Binion when he spotted his grid paintings at Art Basel Miami Beach three years ago. He liked them so much that he bought one on the spot for $38,000 -- then got his friends to buy 10 more.
“I said to my friends: ‘This is a layup,”’ Scholl said in a recent interview. “The work was so brilliant and it was undiscovered. The minute I saw it, I knew I had to have it."
New works by Binion, 71, priced as high as $150,000, will be among the highlights of the 16th edition of the largest contemporary art fair in the U.S. when it opens to guests Wednesday. Investors are more aware than ever of the profits that can be made from art after watching a Da Vinci purchased for $127.5 million in 2013 rocket to an unprecedented $450 million at auction last month.