Questions about buying art
Most of these questions get asked in the room and answered differently every time. This is the written version, including the parts that are not flattering to us.
Choosing a work
How do I know if I actually like it?
Look at a hundred works before you buy one. Not in a book. Online is fine, in person is better. The point is to find out what you keep returning to, which is rarely what you expected. Track the ones you remember a week later. That list is your taste, and it is more reliable than anything a gallery tells you.
Then live with the decision for a few days before you pay. Nobody at Parseen will chase you. A work that is right on Thursday is still right on Monday.
How do I judge scale?
Measure the wall and put painter’s tape on it at the exact dimensions. Every piece on this site lists width, height and depth in inches. A 60 inch canvas that sounded reasonable is often larger than people picture, and a 16 inch panel is usually smaller. Leave room around the work. A painting hung tight into a corner reads as furniture.
Hang the centre of the work at about 57 to 60 inches from the floor, which is roughly eye level and what most galleries use. Over a sofa or a console, hang lower and relate it to the furniture instead.
What should I ask before buying?
Ask any gallery, including this one, for the following. If they hesitate, that is information.
- Medium, support, dimensions and year. All four are on every page of this site.
- Whether it is unique, or an edition, and if so the edition size and the number.
- Condition, and whether it has been restored.
- Who owned it before, if anyone.
- What the artist’s work has sold for recently, and where.
- What documentation comes with it.
Unique work or an edition?
A unique work exists once. An edition exists in a fixed, numbered run, and each cast or print is an original in its own right. Eric Saint Georges casts bronzes in editions of eight, so a piece marked 2/8 is the second of eight. Editions cost less than uniques by the same artist because supply is larger. Neither is more legitimate than the other. What matters is that the edition size is stated and fixed, which is why we print it on the page.
Why do you publish every price?
Because the alternative is a filter. “Price on request” is the category standard, and it exists to make you identify yourself before you learn whether you can afford the work. We would rather you knew in three seconds. Every piece here lists its price, or says plainly that it is not for sale online.
Art and money
Is art a good investment?
For most buyers, no, and we would rather say so on our own website than have you find out later.
The reasons are structural. There is no exchange and no daily price, so a work is worth what one buyer will pay on one day. Selling takes months, not minutes. Auction houses and galleries take a substantial share of the resale price, which means a work has to appreciate significantly before you break even. Most artists’ work never reaches a secondary market at all, so the honest expected resale value of a given piece is closer to zero than to its purchase price. The headline results you read about are the surviving fraction of a much larger number of attempts.
Buy a work because you want to look at it for twenty years. If it appreciates, that is a bonus you did not pay for.
So what actually makes a work hold value?
Not our opinion of it. The things that correlate with a durable market are matters of public record, and you can check every one of them yourself.
- Museum and institutional collections holding the artist’s work.
- A long, continuous exhibition history rather than a recent burst.
- Representation by galleries that have lasted.
- Documented prior sales, ideally at auction, where results are published.
- Condition, and whether the materials were sound to begin with.
- Complete documentation, so the next buyer does not have to take anything on trust.
That is why the two sections below are exhibition records and collections rather than adjectives. It is the part you can verify.
What does it cost to own?
Framing, if the work needs it. Insurance, usually added to a homeowner policy as a scheduled item. Keeping it out of direct sunlight and away from heat, which costs nothing but has to be decided before you hang it. If you ever sell through a gallery or an auction house, expect them to take a meaningful percentage.
This page is general information, not financial, tax or legal advice, and nothing here is a prediction that any work will rise or fall in value. We are art dealers and not licensed advisors. For estate planning, valuation for insurance, or tax treatment, speak to a qualified professional. We work with licensed appraisers and can refer you to one.
The two artists we sell online
We represent four artists. Two are currently published for online purchase. Here is the record for each, and what we think is genuinely uncertain about it.
Yari Ostovany
Born in Iran in 1962, in the United States since 1978, working in the San Francisco Bay Area. BFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1992 and an MFA from the same school in 1995. He taught painting and drawing there, and later held an adjunct faculty post in the art department at the University of Nevada, Reno, from 2005 to 2008.
His work is held in three museum collections: the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut, the John and Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art in Reno, and the Pasargad Bank Museum in Tehran. He has shown solo since 1988, including in Paris, London, Toronto, Tehran and Cologne, and in group exhibitions in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Monaco, the United Kingdom, Italy, Iran, Tajikistan and India. He was an artist in residence at Chateau Orquevaux in France in 2018, and has shown at Battersea in London in four separate years, at Palm Beach Modern and Contemporary, and at the Hamptons Fine Art Fair.
He paints in layers of wash and glaze, added and then scraped back, often starting from calligraphic marks. His series take their names from Persian mystical literature, from Zen and Taoist thought, and from music. That last point deserves care rather than decoration: Ostovany has publicly objected to what he called pandering to the prevalent neo-Orientalism in the art world. The titles are what he is reading and listening to. They are not a cultural theme we are selling, and we would rather you read the paintings as paintings.
The uncertainty, stated plainly: an exhibition record this long is a genuine signal, and a museum holding is a real one. Neither tells you what any individual canvas will be worth later.
696 works available, $180 to $18,500
Full biography and available works.
Eric Saint Georges
Born in France, living in Santa Barbara. He holds a PhD in electrical engineering. A workshop with the sculptor Petrus in 1978 sent him to study drawing and sculpture for a year at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and then to several months with Petrus learning his clay technique. He then spent thirty five years as an engineer, and returned to art full time in 2015.
He works from life. Figures are cut fast into clay with a knife and cast in bronze in editions of eight, and the tool marks are deliberately left in. The drawings combine charcoal, ink and watercolour. He also makes steel and stone work, where he is after resolved form rather than gesture. He has exhibited roughly forty times since 2016, a majority of them juried, including the Triton Museum of Art, the Peninsula Museum, Atkinson Gallery, Arc Gallery in San Francisco and the Ruth Bancroft Sculpture Garden. His work is shown at 10 West Gallery and the La Cumbre Center for Creative Art in Santa Barbara, and at Seager-Gray Gallery in Mill Valley. He teaches figure drawing and sculpture.
The uncertainty, stated plainly: he began exhibiting seriously in 2016, so there is a decade of record rather than four, and no museum collection yet. His prices reflect that, and they are the reason a signed bronze by him is reachable at all. What you are buying is the work, not a forecast.
51 works available, $450 to $12,000
Full biography and available works.
Our exhibitions
Parseen Gallery LLC is registered in Lake Forest, California. We have staged 2 exhibitions to date, both in Costa Mesa. We are a young gallery and would rather list them than imply there were more.
Echoes of Persia
22 to 24 August 2024 · Costa Mesa, California
East to West
15 to 16 February 2025 · 1602 Babcock Street, Costa Mesa, California
Twenty one artists, including all four we now represent.
Buying from us
Who ships the work?
The artist does, not the gallery. They crate it, ship it, and send the packing list to you and to us. Title and risk of loss pass to you when the artist ships. Shipping and returns has the detail, including what happens if a work arrives damaged.
What do I actually pay?
The price on the page, plus shipping, plus a 3.25 percent payment processing fee calculated on the full transaction including shipping and tax. Every line is itemised at checkout before you enter a card. The gallery takes 50 percent of the sale price and the artist takes the other 50 percent, which we mention because most galleries do not.
Can I see it in person?
Usually. Works are with the artists, in California unless the page says otherwise. Ask and we will arrange a studio visit or send more photographs, a video, or a shot with an object in frame for scale. We would rather answer six questions than process a return.
Do you work with designers?
Yes, on hospitality, corporate, medical and yacht projects, and we do the installation ourselves rather than coordinating a third party. For designers and developers covers budgets, lead times and process.
Anything not answered here, write to parseengallery@gmail.com.