Art Hedge Fund Draws To A Close?

The art investment landscape appears to have gotten even smaller, leaving the London-based Fine Art Fund alone on a broad canvas of art hedge funds. Maine Antique Digest presents circumstantial evidence that Fernwood Art Investments has brushed away its 2-year-old art hedge fund program. Apparently no investors lost money; in fact, says the Digest, Fernwood may not have even collected assets or bought any works of art for the fund. The Fine Art Fund paints a different picture, however, as it is currently running one art hedge fund with another two in the pipeline. Fine Art Fund director Philip Hoffman credits its success to having “the right team to back up a good idea. You can’t just see art as an asset class but need to fully understand the market.” Fernwood joins two dozen or so art investment companies that have hung up their palates since 2000. Michael Moses, a proponent of art investment and a professor at New York University who helped develop the Mei/Moses Fine Art Index, told Maine Antique Digest that wealthy investors may not look at art as just “a way to further diversify their portfolios. Some of them simply appreciate art in itself and may decide to collect art.”