Across twelve years on the board of Christie's plc, one thing became clear to Gilles: the art market is a maze for anyone entering it from the outside.
On one side sit the buyers, who fall into four broad categories:
- collectors
- speculators
- asset-driven investors
- lifestyle buyers
The market is animated by thousands of advisers. A handful are genuinely reliable and expert; many more lack the combination of loyalty and competence a family requires.
And then there is the product itself: the art. It is created by a mix of artists in which established names sit alongside others whose value will not survive the decade.
Most families prefer to stay out of this world altogether, unless they are already part of it. Yet art can hold a meaningful place on a family's balance sheet, both as a means of preserving wealth and as a medium of intergenerational transmission. When a family does choose to engage, the decisions that matter are taken well before any specific purchase.
Westwick helps families step into this world through a two-step process. First, we sit with the family to decide what role, if any, art should play in their overall ecosystem: asset, legacy, passion, or some combination of the three. Once that role is clear, we help them take a broader view of art as an asset class and design how it should be sized, acquired, and held. Only then do we steer them toward the advisers who are genuinely competent and aligned, advisers our partners have personally worked with and can vouch for.
The work is demanding for one particular reason. Unlike a listed stock, art is almost never bought on pure investment criteria. A family invests part of its soul in the object, and taking that fact seriously is what separates a good adviser from a mercenary one.
Frequently asked questions
How should a family office manage art as part of the family's assets?
Art in a family office context requires separate treatment from financial assets: it has no income, limited liquidity, significant storage and insurance costs, and valuation that depends on markets the family may not understand. The families that manage art well treat it as a category with its own governance: separate budgets, dedicated expertise, and a clear policy on acquisition and disposal that is agreed by the family, not left to individual taste.
What are the risks of art as a family office investment?
The main risks of art as a family office holding are: illiquidity (art cannot be sold quickly at fair value), opacity (the market is unregulated and valuations are unreliable), concentration (a few major works can represent a disproportionate share of the family's wealth), and succession (family members may disagree on what to keep and what to sell). These risks are manageable with the right governance.