Market Notes

An edition is not a smaller share of an artist's paintings. It is a separate object with its own supply, publisher and resale route. Here is what an edition number leaves out, why editions follow the artist's art market only loosely, and what to check on the certificate before paying.

An art fair doesn't do a collector's diligence for them — it compresses it. Here's what a stand's vetting actually covers, why pre-sales settle much of the room before doors open, and the checks worth running before, not during, the aisle.

Yes: a collector who buys from a gallery owns the work and can, as a matter of property, resell it. Many gallery sales now attach conditions, though — commonly a three-to-five-year bar on resale or auction, and a right of first refusal giving the gallery the first chance to buy the work back. Courts have rarely tested those terms, and their force is mostly commercial. The assumption worth complicating is that a resale clause is either binding law or empty boilerplate, and tha