Investors, artists, and aesthetes have been blown away by the news of an art piece's initial public offering (IPO) set to take place this July. Artex, the company behind this unprecedented investment opportunity made the announcement through its CEO and co-founder Yassir Benjelloun-Touimiat following the launch at the Victoria and Albert Museum in May. According to Bloomberg, the public will have fractional ownership of a Francis Bacon Triptych painting which will be offered at a valuation of between €50 million to €55 million and at a nominal share value that is the euro equivalent of $100. 

Artex: The Art Stock Exchange Company Behind The Francis Bacon IPO

Artex is a stock exchange company started in 2020 as part of the Artex Group and set to revolutionize the stock exchange market with its fractionalisation and liquidity strategies, and its focus on the art market. Artex is headquartered in Liechtenstein. It claims to be regulated by the Financial Market Authority in the same region and to be compliant with the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID). In addition to the upcoming IPO of Francis Bacon’s triptych art, the company is looking to IPO over $1 billion worth of artworks in the coming years. 

Francis Bacon’s Triptych: Three Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer 

The soon-historic art painting was completed in 1963. Titled “Three Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer”, it is the first of over 40 paintings in which Bacon depicted his lover and muse Dyer - a handsome petty thief from London’s East End. Dyer is said to have regularly worn a white long-sleeve shirt. However, in this piece, Bacon omitted this detail, expressing only Dyer’s face and neck profile in the right, center, and left distorted views. This portrait of George Dyer is one of 28 known triptychs created between 1944 and 1986 by the Irish-born painter Bacon. A triptych artwork hinges three closely identical and often related art pieces together but on separate panels. The pieces are aligned vertically and the entire work is intended to be admired together. Francis Bacon’s 1963 masterpiece, after being listed on the Artex stock exchange, will interestingly be put on display in a physical museum where people could see it. 

What Francis Bacon’s Art IPO Means for Investors

The idea of stock listing Bacon’s triptych will mean that art enthusiasts, small investors, and just about anyone can own a piece of the painting which was first auctioned at the Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale on 17th May 2017, and which is usually only owned by collectors like Getty, Catherine the Great, and present-day David Geffen. As much as the art IPO is the first of its kind, it is also a huge and relatively safer investment opportunity for non-expert investors. The reason is that assets of this nature do not have high fluctuating values and so they may offer a hedge against inflation - similar to gold and a few other assets.

Moreover, by making high-end art publicly available, more regular bidders are given a chance to take over an asset. But investors are advised to make their own analysis as there may be dark sides to this seemingly colorful investing opportunity. For those who do not know, artworks are not easily valued against each other as regular stocks are, their prices are determined by the capacity of a buyer, and in addition, they are largely illiquid assets. These are some reasons why artworks, whether high-end or not, may have never made it to stock exchanges before now. It is also important to note the World Street Journal’s comment mentioning that “the IPO is coming at a time when art may have already seen its peak prices, therefore potentially limiting shareholder gains”.  

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