Journal

How to Start Collecting Art: A Guide to Your First Original

Deutsche Version: Kunst sammeln für Anfänger: so finden Sie Ihr erstes Original

Collecting art sounds like something for museums and millionaires. In reality, most collections start the same way: with one painting someone could not stop thinking about. This guide shows how to find that first original, what to watch out for, and how one work can grow into a collection, with examples from the studio of Cologne painter Lena Krashevka.

1. Look a lot, then trust what stays with you

Before you buy, look: exhibitions, art fairs, open studio days, galleries, artists’ websites and Instagram. Notice which works you come back to after a week. That is your taste, and it matters more than any trend. In Cologne, the Discovery Art Fair, gallery openings and open studio days are good places to start, and you can visit Lena’s studio by appointment.

2. Set a budget, and start small if you like

Original paintings by living, exhibiting artists usually cost from several hundred to several thousand euros. You do not have to start big: a small original is still an original. One good work you love beats three cheap ones you are unsure about. Lena’s small originals start under €1,000, and the price of every work follows its size, so you always know where you stand: how prices work.

3. Buy from the artist or a gallery you trust

Buying directly from the artist has advantages: you can ask questions, see the work in person, and learn the story behind it. Good questions to ask:

• When was it painted, and in what technique?
• Where has the artist exhibited? Juried shows are a good sign, such as Lena’s selection for DIE GROSSE 2026 at Museum Kunstpalast.
• Does the work come with a certificate of authenticity?
• How should it be hung and cared for, and how is it shipped?

4. Keep the documents

From the first work on, keep a simple record: title, artist, size, technique, year, price, date of purchase, the invoice and, if there is one, the certificate of authenticity, plus a few photos of the front and the back. It costs ten minutes, and it matters for insurance, for a possible resale and for your heirs. It is also worth checking whether your home contents insurance covers art, and up to what amount.

5. An honest word on art as an investment

Some art gains value, most of it does not, and nobody can predict which. Buy with your eyes, not as a financial product. What you can say: prices of living artists tend to rise as their careers grow and rarely go down, and an artist with exhibitions, juried selections and a growing number of collectors is building that career. The real return of a painting is that you live with it every day.

6. From one work to a collection

A collection is not a pile of pictures. It has a thread. Some ideas:

• Follow one artist over the years. You see their work develop, and artists remember their collectors.
• Collect a series. Lena’s Reflection paintings are mostly 40×40 cm, so two or three of them form a group on one wall.
• Choose a theme, such as paintings of women, a city, flowers or abstraction.
• Mix sizes as the collection grows, and give the strongest work a wall of its own.

7. Live with it

Hang your art where you see it every day, not in the guest room. Change the place now and then: a painting you move looks new again. And look after it: how to hang and care for an oil painting.

Your first original

Start with the works under €1,500, browse all available works, or write to Lena with what you like and what you want to spend. She answers personally.