Want To Invest Like A Billionaire? You Can now Buy Shares of A Painting By Legendary Artist, Ed Ruscha

Investing in artwork may not yet be as mainstream as stocks or real estate for the average investor, but it’s an asset class that’s certainly gaining popularity with the rising interest in alternative investments.

According to Citi’s Global Art Market Report, contemporary art prices appreciated 14% annually from 1995 to 2020, outpacing the 9.5% average return from the S&P 500.

The online investment platform Masterworks is making this once-exclusive asset class available to retail investors by securitizing select pieces of contemporary art and offering shares at $20 each.

Ed Ruscha offering: One of the most recent offerings on the platform is Ed Ruscha’s Varieties of Internal Torment piece from his critically acclaimed 1997 mountain series. Similar painting from the famous artist’s mountain series include’s God Knows Where (2014), which sold for $4,404,855 in February 2020 and Sex at Noon Taxes (2002), which sold for $4,338,500 in November 2010.

With the artist’s pieces having a 12.6% historical price appreciation, many investors are quickly piling into this investment opportunity expecting similar, if not better, returns.

Learn more about Masterworks and the platform's current offerings.

Who is Ed Ruscha? The man behind the painting is a critically acclaimed artist and a mogul in the contemporary art industry. Ed Ruscha has had an expansive career spanning multiple decades and was ranked among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.

Looking back on the success of his career, works by Ed Ruscha from the 1960s have sold for over $30 million at auction: Hurting the Word Radio #2 (1963) sold for $52,485,000 in November 2019, and Smash (1963) sold for $30,405,000 in November 2014.

With this in mind, consensus among the art community is that the legendary artist's paintings will only continue to appreciate in value for the coming decades, making this offering hard to pass up for anyone looking to capitalize on their initial investment.

Learn more about the art offering here