Sponsored by Woodbury House

We spoke with Woodbury House to find out more about the art investment market, in particular street art and an artist named Richard Hambleton. Here is an inside scoop about Woodbury House and their knowledge of Richard Hambleton and the art market.

We visited their studio and interviewed the brand’s co-founder Steven Sulley.

Woodbury House is a well-respected private art studio based in the heart of Soho, London. They specialise in contemporary art and have an extensive collection of artworks from emerging to established artists. Artists included in their collection are Richard Hambleton, Daze, Banksy, Futura, Retna, and many more. Click here to contact Woodbury House.

There are substantial plans for Woodbury House as they venture into becoming the link between the art and fashion world. Whilst still selling investment-grade art, later this year Woodbury House 2.0 is due to launch, this will commence the start of limited drops that they will continue to release with various emerging and established artists.

Coined ‘The Godfather of Street art’ by The New York Times, Richard Hambleton is regarded as a legend of the street art world as many late artists have used his artwork as inspiration. The 1980s New York scene was a popular exclusive scene to be a part of, Hambleton was not fazed by the limelight and rejected the attention he received.

However, his predecessors Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring were very savvy on their approach towards the press. They worked in collaboration with them agreeing to interviews and article features to remain in the public eye.

We’ve gathered data from past auctions, to show a price increase of one artwork for each of the three artists. We decided to compare past auction results, as this is impartial data out there for everybody to see.

Below is a graph showing the dates of the three artists that have passed away, as you can see Hambleton’s friends, Basquiat and Haring passed away over thirty years ago.

 

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Price increase of £2,670,300 in 19 years

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Richard Hambleton

Price increase of $312,600 in 12 years.

Keith Haring

Price increase of $3,975,500 in 17 years.

Once an artist passes their artwork becomes limited to an archive of artwork they created whilst they were alive. In this case, Hambleton’s artwork from the start of his career i.e. the 1980s is becoming much harder to source as investors are seeking these works to build up their collections.

Below is Basquiat’s most memorable artwork originally sold for $19,000 in 1984 and progressed to sell for $110.5 million in the Sotheby’s auction in 2017.

To conclude, logic suggests that the Hambleton market will follow in the same footsteps as his predecessors Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Hambleton’s works have already seen some good capital growth since his death in 2017, the above artwork we showed is not a standalone example either. Investors and collectors worldwide are now stockpiling his work with a common-sense approach that it will rise in value in the coming years.