Art Market Blog with Nicholas Forrest www.artmarketblog.com

Collecting and Investing in Undervalued Japanese Artists

Many of you may not remember the art market correction of the early nineties but the Japanese sure do. The art market boom of the late 80’s was partly driven by wealthy Japanese who had a voracious appetite for Impressionist works because of the prestige associated with owning a famous painting and the usefulness of artworks as a form of tradable currency at a time when property prices were sky high.

When the Japanese economy began to head south in 1990 the wealthy Japanese buyers stopped buying art which left a big gap in the market and caused people to begin to question the world art market boom. As the financial crisis began to worsen all around the world the value of the artworks that the Japanese had paid exorbitant amounts of money for rapidly declined leaving a whole lot of remorseful Japanese stuck with artworks worth a lot less than they had paid for them.

The Japanese art market continues to suffer from the repercussions of the art market correction as the Japanese continue to avoid buying art for fear of a repeat disaster. With so many talented Japanese artists just waiting to be discovered investors and collectors outside of Japan are beginning to take advantage of the situation and are starting to move in. What is traditionally an isolated and insulated market has been forced to open up to the rest of the world in order to take advantage of the appetite for Asian art.

With plenty of catching up to do with the rest of the art market, Japanese art is currently extremely undervalued and is only just starting to build some momentum so now is the time to start buying. If the Japanese won’t take advantage of their own highly talented artists then there are plenty of collectors and investors who will.

Below is a list of Japanese artists that you should seriously consider investing in :

Yoshitomo Nara
Hisashi Tenmyouya
Yayoi Kusama
Kumi Machida
Koichi Enomoto.
Fukuyo Matsui
Ai Yamaguchi
Makoto Aida
Tsujikawa Koichiro
Namiko Kitaura
Hiraki Sawa

**Nicholas Forrest is an art market analyst, art critic and journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He is the founder of artmarketblog.com, writes the art column for the magazine Antiques and Collectibles for Pleasure and Profit and contributes to many other publications.