The situation is a very common one: at the start of an art collection, the pieces are few and the collector imagines that they will keep every detail about each artwork in their head. But time passes, the collection grows, and it becomes impossible to memorise so much information, to keep it organised and accessible for a variety of situations – a loan, a sale, or managing the needs of periodic conservation or of insurance. For the collector who likes to carry out these activities directly, there are a number of apps that help with cataloguing artworks.
In this post, we list some of the solutions available on the market. In general, they all offer the possibility of organising digital records for each artwork, with information on authorship, value, dimensions, technique and a field for uploading photos.
The Artdex, available only for iOS, advertises as one of its advantages the separation of the collection's photos into a specific folder on the mobile phone, preventing them from becoming mixed up with other images – including images of artworks photographed in museums, which, after a while, can make it virtually impossible to find an artwork from the selection in the image gallery.
Meanwhile, Arteïa offers the possibility of managing documents related to each artwork, setting up a periodic conservation check, creating a financial dashboard and building digital showrooms – which can be public or shared only with the people the collector nominates. The tool has a monthly cost of € 9.50.
The free Collectrium, available only for iOS, has as its distinguishing feature the possibility of generating a customised presentation mode, in which the collector chooses the fields that will be shown – this can be useful, for example, for presenting the collection to someone without showing strategic information such as the purchase price. The app also has the facility to simulate, virtually, how an artwork would look if it were placed in the real setting of the home.
Finally, Simplify.art stores reports and documents related to each artwork, including information on insurance. The free version of the app runs on iOS and Android smartphones. To access the inventory on a computer, you have to turn to the paid version.
However, not everyone has the time to look after the collection's inventory personally. There are also cases in which the number of artworks is already so large that it is even difficult to know where to begin. In situations like these, the best option is to rely on a specialist cataloguing service, carried out by qualified professionals.
Clé Reserva Contemporânea has partners who provide this service, and some clients take the opportunity to carry out the process while the collection is stored on our premises. In that case, the professionals must be expressly authorised by the client in order to access the facility and the artworks kept there.
Would you like to know more about this service? Contact us.
