«GOOD BUSINESS IS THE BEST ART»

The $20 million Collection of Modern Art fund, which holds 27 works including Andy Warhol's "Five Guns" and Roy Lichtenstein's "Nude in an Apartment," owns Picasso's 1967 crayon work "Adolescents, aigle et ane" which it bought last year for 220,000 pounds ($322,100). "Picasso's post-war works are cheaper but have become more important lately due to an exhibition in the (UK's) National Portrait Gallery last year," Constanze Kubern, Castlestone's senior art adviser, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.The fund's performance has suffered since launch last April as prices in the art market have fallen. Between April and December last year the fund's value fell 21.99 percent, while in the first four months of this year it is up 0.12 percent.The huge 5-10 percent transaction fees that are commonplace can be a drag on performance of art portfolios, but the Castlestone fund tries to recoup these by exhibiting its works in museums.Last month the fund, which typically buys works of art for between $400,000 and $800,000 and holds them for five to eight years, purchased 81-year-old Indiana's "Non-ending Nonagon" for $190,000."He's a key player in pop art. The market is undervalued and we expect it to go up," said Kubern. "Due to his elderly age it's a good investment."

-Reuters
June 4 2010