Art as Investment: You Could Do Worse

"Buy art because you love it, not because you think it will be a good investment." So investment advisers, art dealers and curators have said for generations. Some of them even meant it.

But you could do worse, investment-wise. So learned former hedge fund manager John Devaney. As today's NY Times reports, he made a fortune in mortgage investments and lost it all. Attempting to keep his hedge fund afloat, he sold his jet, his Florida home and his yacht.

Unlike Devaney's bales of dubious mortgage investments, some of his expensive toys fetched a profit. His painting by Renoir, which he bought for $9 million, sold for $13.5 million.

"Art is long, life short," observed Hippocrates. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe expanded on the thought in a fashion Devaney might endorse:

"Art is long, life short; judgment difficult, opportunity transient."