Ulrich Klügel

I have been collecting and selling art for nearly twenty years now, first as a hobby, then professionally. When I started, I knew little about art - I had been to the occasional blockbuster exhibition, but I had no idea how many wonderful painters there are, even from my own region in Northern Germany. The internet then made art accessible for me: I had always found galleries too exclusive, and it was a great moment to see that in online auctions you could buy great that was actually affordable ... Meanwhile hundreds of paintings have gone through my hands, and art has become a part of my everyday life. But I still feel I know very little about it - art is really a fascinating, complex, and vast world. Every painting that I receive is a new experience - it is a little window into the world of the artist. I love unwrapping and cleaning them, doing research and getting into contact with other art enthusiasts. I have been selling art to people on several continents, to museums and foundations, and it is great to learn about the history and the stories connected to the paintings. Often relatives of an artist buy their art, people from the same place or region, and often these are very interesting people - among my customers there have been opera singers, Maths professors, and eminent politicians. Of all the styles I like impressionism best - there is a wonderful cheerfulness and optimism about it with its bright colours and celebration of the beauty of nature. An exciting discovery have been impressionists from other countries but France - Slovenian impressionists are great ... I am doing my best to describe the paintings correctly and to package them carefully but there are still some challenges: Getting the colours right in the photos is difficult, describing the various little signs of age in paintings can be hard, and packaging a large painting can be a work of art in itself. My proudest moment was when a very large watercolour with a glass pane got to France undamaged ... Catawiki is a great place to buy and sell art. The guidance by the experts is really useful, and the system is so well organized that it is both practical and safe. Now I have taken enough of your time ... Let me conclude with an Andy Warhol saying: "Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it."