William Verdult Blog

Verdult artwork - Moving beyond a hope and a prayer.

Verdult artwork - Moving beyond a hope and a prayer.

As we stressed in our post on "William Joseph Verdult - Where's My $5 million?" we are moving beyond just a hope and a prayer in valuing Verdult artwork.

More and more you see Verdult art work and summary of the artist showing up in the data bases of major websites responsible for tracking major listed artist around the world.

In February of last year, we completed a major initiative to get William Joseph Verdult listed on artprice.com which list major artist around the world. In addition to supplying extensive background information on Verdult including the Official bio and Verdult Scrapbook, we provided several hundred background documents not previously released to the public.

Last year in addition to releasing a number of press releases on Verdult artwork to keep the Verdult name in the public's eye, we were also successful in getting William Joseph Verdult listed on Askart.com.

This year are completing arrangements to get William Joseph Verdult listed both here in the United States and in Europe on perhaps the largest on-line organization responsible for tracking Verdult artwork. Not only will this organization include William Joseph Verdult as a listed artist; prices of William Joseph Verdult artwork will be included in the data base as well.

Yazzy's WilliamVerdult.com Art Financing Program

Get more Information on Financing>>>>

Yazzy's Fine Art Corporation is offering a William Verdult Fine Art Financing Program for art lovers and investors.

The art market is experiencing a record increase in growth. There has been a lot of news about this growth and increase in art prices.

In the past, only the most wealthiest individuals banking with private wealth sections in prestigious top flight banks were able to secure loans to acquire art. The Corporation has a fine art loan financing program that will allow you to both acquire and enjoy original fine art from a listed artist; at great prices too!

Art fund draws up new model to adorn diversified portfolios - William Verdult

According to ft.com the first ever genuine art hedge fund are not quite the bohemian types one might associate with such an exotic asset class.

"I love the beautiful, sophisticated things in life, but for me art is just a commodity, it's a cold thing," says Justin Williams, a director of London-based Artistic Investment Advisers. "I have collected well, but I see art as a p&l [profit and loss account] on the wall."

While such sentiments may sound clinical to art lovers, they at least shed light on the rationale of AIA's Art Trading Fund, which is more about monetising industry inefficiencies and hedging out risks than acquiring priceless masterpieces.

AIA, which hopes to raise fund's for its launch, appears to have timed its emergence to perfection. Investors, both institutional and retail, appear to be constantly on the lookout for new asset classes, having accepted the wisdom that diversification is the only free lunch.

Meanwhile records seem to be shattered in the art world on an almost weekly basis. The US Mei Moses art index, which tracks global auction sales, rose 18.3 per cent last year, with post-1945 works surging by 45 per cent.

But the Art Trading Fund is not simply a one-way bet on the art market, as many investment clubs have been in the past.

"We are the only hedge fund because the others do not have a hedge," says Chris Carlson, a fellow director and former co-manager of the equity proprietary trading desks of Deutsche Bank and UBS O'Connor, a hedge fund. "People have bastardised the term 'hedge fund'. Without a hedge you are just an investment club.

"We have looked at the art market over the last 30 years and looked at what kind of economic indicators have a high correlation to the performance of the market."

AIA claims to have found between 10 and 15 different economic indicators and securities that, combined, have exhibited a 96 per cent correlation with the art market over the past 30 years. By shorting these through 10 per cent out-of-the-money puts, it believes it can construct an effective hedge.

Mr Carlson is reluctant to reveal the full basket of hedges, but the equities of Sotheby's, the US auction house, and Richemont, the Swiss luxury goods group, are in there.

Economic growth and disposable income at the 90th percentile in the big art-buying countries are other highly correlated indicators, which can be shorted via derivatives.  "There is a lag of between six and 18 months between the economic indicators turning and the effect on the art market," he says.

"But we will always have some hedging in place in case of an unforeseen geopolitical or economic shock to the marketplace."

The works of art held within the fund will also be selected on the basis of whether they are likely to generate steady, predictable returns.

 

Tell A Friend About Yazzy's at www.williamverdult.com

Click here to tell a friend or relative about Yazzy's at www.williamverdult.com

The Verdult Forum on Yazzy's at www.williamverdult.com - A Place for Owners and Art lovers to Go and get Answers

Owners of Verdult Art as Well as Others have a Place to Go – The Verdult Forum

Did you know that the Verdult Forum is a place where anyone can go and ask questions, get answers, and exchange ideas directly with other Verdult owners or potential owners? The Verdult forum was the suggestion of a Verdult Founding Member. The forum let you exchange ideas and experiences directly with Verdult owners, ask questions, talk about what is good, and what is not so good about Verdult art and the Verdult art market. So if there is something on your mind, you have a suggestion, or just want to talk, visit the Verdult Forum. 

Click to go to the Forum

William Joseph Verdult - Charitable Contribution program

Charitable Contributions
As part of our mission to add value to peoples lives, Wealth Enterprises - Verdult Corporation donates William Verdult product to non-profit organizations across the United States for the purposes of charitable fundraising.
Our intent is honor as many requests as possible. To help streamline the procedures, all requests go through our Corporate Relations Department. Wealth Enterprises - Verdult Corporation will only consider making donations to non-profit organizations that meet the following criteria.
1. Non-profit status We will only consider donations to valid non-profit organizations. Requesting organizations must provide their Federal 501(c) 3 Non-Profit Status I.D. number prior to consideration.
2. Mission Statement
We will grant donations to those organizations that we can best determine follow the same core values as Wealth Enterprises - Verdult Corporation.The mission of the organization must focus on one of the following areas:

• Arts
• Children's organizations
• Faith based ministries
• Healthcare
• Economic Development for the needy
  

3. Deadline for Requests
Donation request letters must be received at least 90 days prior to the date of the event. The 90-day notice will be considered only upon the receipt of all donation request documentation, which includes the Donation Request Form and a letter on the organization's official letterhead.

4. One time donation commitment
An acceptance of an organization's request is only for the year in which the request is made. The acceptance does not guarantee any future donations. We will only donate an item(s) once within an organizations calendar year. This includes operations such as Red Cross and the American Heart Society that have numerous chapters within the same organization. Any exceptions to this will be up to the corporate officer that authorizes the donation.

Verdult's Bright Feeling Released for Public Showing

Bright Feeling a 22x28 original painting, oil on artist paper by William Verdult provides art lovers and investors with a different perspective on Verdult art. The piece is part of the Abstract art collection which can be seen at Verdult Gallery.com .

Recently a painting close to Bright Feeling in construction appraised for over $50,000 by an independent third party appraiser.

Recently we published an articles entitled 'What is the real price of Verdult artwork? and William Joseph Verdult - Where's My $5 million?' highlighting difference between the value on a Certificate of Authenticity and the value placed by an independent qualified appraiser. Note there is a distinct difference that art lovers and investor should be concerned about before purchasing art work.

Also articles of note:

My Verdult has an Insurance appraisal of $125,000 I need to know the fair market value.

We get tons of emails asking about the value of creations by William Joseph Verdult

Ever wonder what your Verdult painting is really worth?

Give art donors a break as reported on Verdultgallery.com

According to David Barrie of the blogartandarchitecture....

The US provides generous tax incentives for private benefactors, so what's stopping the UK doing the same?

What do works by Mark Rothko, Constantin Brancusi and John Singer Sargeant have in common? You would be right to guess that UK museums would struggle to buy one on the open market. But in America works by these artists are among those in a gift worth £1bn to the Seattle Art Museum from 53 of the region's top private collectors.

Is this a one-off? Apparently not; The Art Newspaper reports that a number of US institutions have benefited from similarly fabulous gifts. And these gifts are made by wealthy philanthropists while they are still alive.

The US has long benefited from a culture of cultural giving based on proper recognition of donors, and extremely generous tax incentives. 100% of the value of gifts of cash or works of art to museums can be deducted from income tax; and there's a bill being put before Congress to be even more generous, allowing artists to donate their works to public collections. But it's not just the US; Australia, Ireland and Canada all allow gifts of works of art to be offset against income tax, albeit less generously.

So what of the UK? The tax system is there to help you if you're dead, with a fine system to write off inheritance tax. It will also help if you've had something around for a while and built a healthy capital gain. But if you've made a lot of money yourself, perhaps built a bit of an art collection, there's no income tax benefit to be had by giving some of it away to a museum - though oddly that is not the case if you have land, property or shares.

Despite the enormous wealth being generated in the City, the UK lags behind in the terms of the scale of private, charitable donations - so says the government's own report into Higher Education funding. Art Fund research last year showed that our great national museums are being outspent on acquisitions by their competitors abroad - all of which benefit from better tax incentives. Indeed, our big nationals are sometimes raising more money from their American Friends than from UK taxpayers - bizarre indeed!

Cultural giving is also about donor recognition. But encouraging people to give in their lifetime helps build a relationship between donor and institution which ultimately brings far more private money into the system than the tax relief it costs the state. Everyone knows the pressure on public funds is immense; why on Earth not give people a break, and see what happens? Sometimes to change behaviour you need to give people a nudge.

Recap: Princeton to Return Disputed Art to Italy, at www.blogverdult.com

According to the New York Times, Princeton University announced on Friday that its art museum had reached an agreement to return eight ancient works to Italy that the Italian government says were looted and illicitly exported.

The pact calls for the Princeton University Art Museum to send back four of the objects immediately and to keep four on loan for the next four years, the university said in a statement. In a partial victory of sorts, Princeton will keep seven other pieces that had been part of negotiations.

The accord, which is to be signed here on Tuesday, was reached after nearly 18 months of talks. Reached by telephone, Maurizio Fiorilli, an Italian government lawyer who heads a negotiating committee on restitution issues, described the negotiations as “cordial but tough.”

Several pieces in the museum’s collection had come under the scrutiny of Italian officials who investigate trafficking in looted artifacts. Princeton said that three of the eight works being returned to Italy were part of an Italian inquiry in 2004.

Those are a Greek psykter, or vase for cooling wine, from the sixth century B.C.; an Apulian loutrophoros, a tall vessel used to carry water, from the fourth century B.C.; and an Etruscan relief, the university said.

The psykter, attributed to the so-called Kleophrades Painter, and the loutrophoros, attributed to the legendary Darius Painter, will remain at the museum for four years as part of a research program in which both the Italian government and the museum will take part, the university said.

Princeton students will also be given access to excavations at archaeological sites in Italy to carry out research.

Yazzy's a www.williamverdult.com Private Auction

As part of the launch of its new web site, Yazzy's at www.williamverdult.com is featuring a private auction for art enthusiast and investors.

The Auction is by Invitation Only and will be online on September 1-2 , 2007.

The auction will be held at www.williamverdult.com.

Here is how the program works: At least every three months a Private Auction is held by invitation. During the private auction three things take place:

1. First rare works not seen by the public eye are presented to invited guests.

2. The items presented to guests will have great value, in most cases works will have already been appraised by the National Institute of Appraisers and their full market value will have been established; and

3. A great value will be passed on to invited guests. In other words not only will the art work be rare, guests will have the rare opportunity of acquiring the work at minimum cost.