How to Purchase Art Confidently: 4 Tips for New Collectors

Starting your art collection should feel exciting, not intimidating. And yet, so often I meet people who want to buy art, but hesitate. They worry: What if I don’t choose the right piece? What if I regret it later?

If that’s you, I want to offer a few truths that might help you step into collecting with confidence and joy.

1. Don’t shop for art the way you shop for a couch.
Art isn’t a “match” for your room; it’s a companion to your life. While scale and palette matter, don’t reduce a painting to décor. Choose work that moves you. The right piece will lift the space, even if it surprises you at first.

Looking at old prints at a little antique shop in Versailles

2. Ask yourself, “Do I want to live with this mood?”
Instead of analyzing the subject or the style, tune into the feeling. Is it calm? Electric? Introspective? Joyful? Good art creates an atmosphere. If that atmosphere resonates with you now and you can imagine craving it in different seasons of life, you’ve likely found something meaningful.

Photo by Rachel May for Greenville’s TALK Magazine. Model is in front of “An Enchanted Passage”

3. Stop looking for the ‘best’ piece—look for the one that lingers.
If you're torn between a few pieces, pay attention to the one you keep thinking about the next day. Not the flashiest, but the one you return to mentally. That quiet pull is often a sign of a deeper connection.

“Manhattan in Spring” — painted after a trip to the Big Apple. Coincidentally the piece now lives in NYC.

4. Trust that your taste will evolve—and that’s a good thing.
You don’t need to be “done” when you start. The first piece is a beginning, not a final statement. If you love it today, that’s enough. The story of your collection is told over time, and it’s allowed to shift as you do.

Purchasing art isn’t about proving your sophistication. It’s about building a record of your beautiful life and reflecting the things that move you, the places you’ve been, the connections you’ve made.

If something calls to you, trust it. I still love the first original oil painting I bought — I love the colors, the lightness, the sense of movement.. It has a chip on the corner, so it had been marked down to a price my tiny newlywed budget could afford, but I bought it because I loved it: I connected with it. And that’s the beginning of collecting with confidence.