Art and Culture experts around the world agreed: Art should be registered and described.

Intense lengthy collaborations in the 1990's between insurance companies, art dealers, appraisers, museums, UNESCO, police departments and others in the arts community worldwide, brought about an international standard for identifying art and cultural objects.

Why would I register my art?

1. One's personal art collection evokes emotion, usually on a pleasing note. It is not like a piece of furniture that you use on a daily basis and eventually wears out. You can bring back to life all the excitement you first felt when you bought the piece , by revisiting your documentation and the circumstances in which you bought it. Feel the excitement again!

2. Identification

If a stolen piece of art that belongs to you is recovered by the authorities, would you like it returned to you? Probably not. If you are unable to identify it, it will not be returned to you. If no one knows who it belongs to, they can not ask you to identify it.

3. Insurance purposes

Should a disaster occur and your belongings were destroyed, without adequate records you will not likely be reimbursed the correct values of your loss. If either your whole household is destroyed, or just your artwork, there will be a significant amount of stress involved. If you were to sit down and itemize your collection without any off site records, you would probably find it difficult to adequately describe it.

Imagine having to do it under stress. You may not be able to remember all the details of how much something cost, who framed it, whether acid free materials were used, what number it is if it's a numbered print. The gallery or frame shop may not still be around or may not keep records back far enough.

If you do not keep apprised of current market values, your insurance coverage may not be sufficient or you may need a fine arts rider. A limited edition print may have been issued at $300.00 but based on secondary market values the amount of money required to replace it may have risen to $3000.00. Remember that many insurance policies pay out per occurrence, so if several pieces are involved you may surpass your policy coverage.

4. If you received artwork as a gift you may be unable to even estimate how much its worth.

5. Should you ever decide to sell all or part of your collection, it will have more value with an established provenance - (previous ownership details). Many of the larger international auction houses provide you with these details. Often local auction houses do no. Also you will have already established a selling price.

6. If your collection and other belongings become part of your estate, you will want a fair distribution based on a fair market value of the collection. We are a very mobile society but artists reputation and clientele are usually local.

Also we tend to buy when on holidays, so we are not around to find out if the artist becomes more celebrated and his/her paintings worth more. A customer from California recently brought an A.Y. Jackson to Alberta to be sold at auction

because the reputation of Canadian artists are not well known in California . Similarly, if a piece of artwork by a well known European artist has to be taken to Europe to obtain its fair value, if you consider the cost of the trip, you have lost a lot of value.

1. Illicit proceeds from the sale of stolen art can be transferred around the world in seconds with electronic banking, often before the owners know the piece has been stolen. Also, because no one can verify the exact price of unregistered art and cultural objects, the proceeds of crime, drugs and prostitution can be laundered by this method.

The saddest part of all, is if your heirs unknowingly do not choose to take the proper steps to sell your collection, history may be lost forever if it is sold at a garage sale or thrown in the garbage.The same is true if your heirs do not care for the pieces, and are only interested in getting rid of them . Campbell's Art Registry, Sales and History Shoppe provides this service to its clients, and uses up to 27 different points of identification for each piece registered. If any items are sold then the registration is transferred to the new owner. With the new technology, more and more artists are producing their own digitally enhanced pictures, are making prints, giclees, and other reproductions. There are no regulations so therefore the integrity of the artist and his agents must be considered when claims are made about the number of prints that have or will be printed.

-Bev Campbell

To contact Bev Campbell, email her at bgcampbell@shaw.ca

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From Times Past