Taking the Long View

Tapping into the strength of the market in rare prints, London’s Photographers’ Gallery is offering guidance to investors seeking a home for their capital.

Anyone keeping an eye on the world’s auction houses will have noticed that photography is no
longer the poorer cousin of contemporary art. You only have to look at how much the work of
photographers such as Richard Prince – whose Untitled (Cowboy) sold for $1,248,000 in 2005 – is fetching to see how photography has risen in the estimation of serious collectors.

With that in mind, London’s Photographers’ Gallery is providing a new set of services for corporate clients who are keen to enhance their knowledge of the medium – and maybe speculate a little, too. “A lot of big companies purchase photography for exhibit within their buildings or are starting to invest in it because they realise the return you can get,” says Laura Noble, deputy manager of the gallery’s bookshop. “It’s a better investment than a pension these days.”

She should know; she’s written a book on the subject, The Art of Collecting Photography. She says that one of the best ways to break into collecting is by building a library of books, expert advice on which the bookshop is providing as part of the gallery’s corporate package. “Many companies start up reference libraries, but they become quite ad hoc,” Noble points out. “We can provide that extra bit of knowledge. It’s very easy to read a blurb about a photographer online, but to get the whole picture of what they do is much harder. There might be a book that’s all the rage but it might be unrepresentative of the rest of that photographer’s work.”

Some of the other services the new scheme will provide are the opportunity to host private events at the gallery and a corporate hire scheme that enables companies to display rare prints in their offices. As the UK’s unofficial flagship photography space, this non-profit organisation has championed contemporary photography over the years with some daring exhibitions that
stretch far beyond the mainstream. But its ambitions are hampered by the awkward structure of the building that houses the collection; two relatively narrow gallery spaces are divided by a buffer building that forces visitors out on the street to reach other parts. This problem should be resolved by a move, planned for 2010, to larger premises on Ramillies Street.

The expansion should ensure photography’s increasing caché, which should in turn guarantee
collectors a tidy profit. For more information on the corporate club and other opportunities at The Photographers’ Gallery email info@photonet.org.uk