Market Implications of Art Collectors’ Consumer Behavior: the case of François Pinault

This paper presents the results of a study on the consumer behavior of today’s art collectors. Art collection is not a new research topic, yet little has been published on private contemporary art museums and private contemporary art collectors. This lack combined with the challenge posed by some recent art market trends, has inspired my research. This has focused on three major-league private art collectors, chosen on account of their having a private museum in Italy. In Italy, the Prada Foundation, the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation, and the François Pinault Foundation are the most relevant privately-founded contemporary art museums. For the purpose of this study, among these three art museums I have selected the Pinault’s collection. Such collection encompasses 2,000 artworks that Pinault houses and exhibits mainly in Venice. This paper suggests two hypotheses that allow better to examine the roles and the values of today’s art collectors and to understand the market relationship between collectors and artists. The first concerns Pinault’s own consumer behavior. It assumes that Pinault as a collector may have specific preferences. The second hypothesis assumes that there exists a “Pinault effect”. It suggests that Pinault’s consumer behavior positively impacts the artist’s career by conferring a strategic artistic and financial enhancement to it. In other words, an art collector’s consumer behavior such as Pinault’s, impacts the art market.