What’s Up with Cruise Ship Art Auctions?

Are there really deals to be found at sea, or is buying art just another part of the vacation experience?

There are certain things you expect to find on a cruise ship. A pool, a casino, a buffet, a spa and enough bars that eventually you start wondering whether you’ve already walked past this particular one or you’re simply going in circles.

And then there’s the art gallery.

On many major cruise lines, it doesn’t take long before an invitation appears for an onboard art auction. There may be complimentary Champagne, giveaways and drawings. You can wander through the gallery beforehand, browse everything from colorful contemporary pieces to works by names you actually recognize, and eventually find yourself sitting in an auction with a numbered paddle in your hand.

For a lot of cruisers, it’s simply something fun to do on a sea day. For others, it becomes an opportunity to bring home something considerably more expensive than the T-shirt or refrigerator magnet they originally planned on buying.

Susan and I fall into that second category.

About 20 years ago, while sailing on Carnival, we wandered into one of those auctions and got completely caught up in the experience. By the time it was over, we’d spent nearly $3,000 on five pieces of artwork, including works by Peter Max and Romero Britto.

That sounds like the perfect beginning to a cautionary tale about why you should never buy art on a cruise ship. Except it isn’t.

Twenty years later, we still have those pieces, and still like them. The Max and Britto in particular have moved from room to room over the years as we’ve occasionally tried to give them a little new life. Their values have increased considerably, and they’ve now reached the point where we have to account for additional art coverage with our homeowners insurance….apparently buying the art was only the beginning. Nobody at the auction mentioned I’d still be paying for it 20 years later.

More importantly, though, we don’t regret buying any of it. And that’s what got me wondering about something I’ve mostly taken for granted during all the cruises we’ve taken since:

What’s really going on with those cruise ship art auctions?

How Did Art Auctions Become Such a Big Part of Cruising?

If you’ve sailed on Carnival, Celebrity, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, Holland America or several other major cruise lines, there’s a good chance you’ve encountered Park West Gallery. The Michigan-based company has been in business since 1969 and has essentially turned cruise ships into floating art galleries, introducing millions of travelers to artists they might otherwise never have encountered.

That’s actually one of the more interesting parts of this whole story.

Think about the last time you decided to spend a Saturday afternoon walking into a fine-art gallery at home. Some of you probably do that regularly. I’m guessing many more of us don’t.

Put that same gallery on a cruise ship, offer an entertaining auction on a sea day, pour some Champagne and suddenly there’s a room full of people learning about Peter Max, Romero Britto, Michael Godard and newer contemporary artists such as KRE8.

And some of those people become collectors.

Park West certainly didn’t create artists like Max or Britto, but the cruise ship environment has given artists like these exposure to an enormous audience outside the traditional gallery world. That’s part of what makes the business model so fascinating. It takes something that can sometimes feel intimidating, like buying fine art, and makes it feel much more accessible.

You don’t necessarily have to know anything about art. You can walk through the gallery, see something you like, hear the story behind the artist and learn a little along the way.

Of course, eventually someone hands you a paddle, and that’s where things can get interesting.

Are There Really Deals to Be Found at Sea?

This may be the question most people wonder about, especially when an auctioneer starts talking about the value of a piece and the price at which you might be able to buy it.

Art, however, isn’t nearly as easy to comparison-shop as a cruise cabin or a new television.

There are originals, lithographs, serigraphs, embellished works and limited editions. Edition size matters. Signatures can matter. Condition, provenance and framing can matter. Two pieces that appear identical during a quick online search may actually be quite different.

There’s also an important distinction between appraised or replacement value and resale value.

Park West explains that its appraisals represent its opinion of an artwork’s replacement value. That’s useful for things such as insurance, which ironically, we’ve now experienced ourselves, but it doesn’t necessarily represent what someone would pay you for that artwork tomorrow.

So let’s say you purchase a piece for $2,000 that carries a considerably higher appraised value. Did you get a great deal? Maybe.

But the better question might be whether you bought something you really wanted for a price you were comfortable paying.

That’s admittedly a less exciting story than believing you’ve somehow discovered a $5,000 treasure for $2,000 while sailing through the Caribbean, but it’s probably a healthier way to approach buying art.

It’s also why I wouldn’t buy artwork onboard primarily as an investment.

Our Peter Max and Britto pieces have increased substantially in value since we purchased them, which sounds great until you consider one minor detail: we’re not selling them.

Unless we eventually sell something, that increased value doesn’t pay for another cruise, buy dinner or put a dollar back into our bank account. Someday our kids may inherit everything and discover that Mom and Dad were brilliant art investors, or they’ll stand in our house, stare at the walls and ask each other, “What exactly are we supposed to do with all this stuff?”

After nearly 40 years of accumulating things, I suspect the second scenario may have slightly better odds.

The Auction Is Part Shopping and Part Entertainment

There’s another factor that shouldn’t be overlooked when trying to decide whether buying art onboard makes sense: you’re not shopping for art under particularly normal circumstances.

You’re on vacation.

You’re relaxed. Someone may have just handed you a glass of Champagne. The auctioneer is entertaining, you’re hearing stories about the artists, other people are bidding and there’s a little energy in the room when someone wins something. Maybe there’s another drawing coming up, and maybe you’ve already found a piece you keep looking at every time you walk through the gallery.

None of this means anyone is trying to trick you into buying something. It means they’re very good at creating an experience around shopping.

Cruise ships do this everywhere. The casino isn’t simply a room containing slot machines. Specialty restaurants aren’t simply places to eat. The shops don’t just put watches in glass cases and wait for someone to wander past.

Cruise lines are very good at turning spending money into part of the entertainment, and the art auction may be one of the best examples onboard.

Looking back, I’m fairly certain Susan and I wouldn’t have woken up on a random Saturday morning at home, driven to an art gallery and spontaneously spent $3,000 on five pieces.

On a cruise? Apparently, we would.

But that’s not necessarily something I regret. We enjoyed the experience, we liked what we bought and, all these years later, we still have it.

What About the Free Art and Giveaways?

The giveaways are another reason people wander into these auctions in the first place. There are often drawings, promotional credits and opportunities to receive complimentary artwork simply for attending or participating.

And I don’t see anything wrong with enjoying that part of it.

If you’re on a sea day with nowhere you need to be, why not go? Have a glass of Champagne. Look at some art. Learn something about an artist you’ve never heard of. Enter the drawing and see what happens.

Just keep the word free in perspective.

Receiving a piece of artwork doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve just won a valuable investment, nor does it mean you’ll necessarily want to hang it over the fireplace when you get home. Depending on what you purchase or receive, there may also be framing, shipping, taxes or other considerations worth understanding.

That’s not a reason to avoid the auction. It’s simply a reason to ask questions before getting swept up in the excitement.

And if you win something you like? Great. You just found a much more interesting cruise souvenir than another coffee mug or t-shirt.

Could You Find the Same Art Cheaper Somewhere Else?

Possibly.

Park West doesn’t exist exclusively on cruise ships. The company also operates galleries and conducts land-based and online auctions, so being somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean isn’t your one and only opportunity to buy a particular artist.

There are also traditional galleries, auction houses and secondary markets where artwork changes hands.

If you’re considering spending serious money on something onboard, there’s nothing wrong with doing a little research first. We carry computers around in our pockets now, so you might as well use them.

The challenge is making sure you’re actually comparing the same thing. Finding an image online that looks identical doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the same edition, medium or condition.

But there’s another part of the equation I think sometimes gets overlooked when people debate whether cruise ship artwork is overpriced.

Convenience has value.

You saw the piece in person. Someone explained it to you. You learned about the artist. Depending on the purchase, framing and shipping may be handled for you. A certificate of authenticity accompanies purchased artwork. A few weeks later, something you discovered while on vacation arrives at your house ready to become part of it.

Could you potentially hunt down something similar somewhere else and pay less? Maybe, but you could say the same thing about a cruise line shore excursion.

Sometimes I could arrange essentially the same excursion independently for less money. That doesn’t automatically mean the person who booked through the cruise line got ripped off. They may have simply decided the convenience was worth paying for.

Art isn’t that different.

The Part We Forget to Include in the Cost of a Cruise

This whole conversation also connects nicely with something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately: what a cruise actually costs.

When I recently wrote about The Cheapest Cruise Isn’t Always the Cheapest Cruise, the point was that comparing two cruise fares doesn’t necessarily tell you which vacation will cost less. You have to consider what you’ll actually buy once everything is added together.

Drinks matter. Wi-Fi matters. Gratuities matter. Excursions and specialty restaurants matter. And if you have a history of wandering into an art auction and coming out $3,000 lighter, perhaps we should add art to the spreadsheet.

The important distinction is that none of those expenses is inherently bad.

One person might spend $1,000 in the casino. Someone else spends it at the spa. Another books a once-in-a-lifetime helicopter excursion. Someone else buys a painting they’ll hang in their home for the next 20 years.

Those are simply different ways people spend money on vacation.

If buying art is something you enjoy doing when you cruise, then it’s part of the cost of your cruise. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. It just means you probably shouldn’t pretend it doesn’t count because it wasn’t included in the cruise fare.

Final Thoughts

Would we buy art on a cruise ship again?

This is where I thought I’d have a more definitive answer when I started thinking about this article, but I really don’t.

I wouldn’t go into a cruise ship art auction believing I’d discovered some secret marketplace where valuable artwork can consistently be purchased for a fraction of what it’s really worth. If I were considering a substantial purchase today, I’d probably do more comparison shopping than we did 20 years ago.

But I also wouldn’t discourage someone from buying a piece they genuinely love.

Did Susan and I get the deal of a lifetime on those five pieces? Probably not.

Did we get ripped off? I don’t think so, either.

We bought artwork we liked at prices we were willing to pay. We enjoyed the experience of buying it. Two pieces in particular have become favorites, their values have increased over the years, and they’re still hanging somewhere in our home 20 years later.

Maybe the most important part is that they’re also attached to a memory.

We didn’t buy that Peter Max through an anonymous online transaction while sitting at the kitchen table. We bought it while we were on a Carnival cruise, during a period in our lives that comes back to me every once in a while when I look at it.

And perhaps that’s where trying to determine whether cruise ship art is a “good deal” gets a little complicated.

If you buy a piece of art on vacation, hang it in your home for 20 years, move it from room to room because you still enjoy looking at it, and occasionally remember the cruise where you bought it, the value isn’t entirely contained in an appraisal.

Some of it is hanging right there on the wall.