Unless you’re a seasoned art collector, your path to an artwork is usually a winding and capricious one. It’s less about the discovery than the search—the estate sales you may have scoured, the keywords you might have pecked out, until finally you stumble upon something that clicks.
SINGULART turns this model on its head. At this premium online art and furniture shop, the discovery comes first. The search, in comparison, takes no time at all.
SINGULART enables clients to buy artwork and furniture by more than 12,000 artists from 110 different countries. To navigate this massive collection, SINGULART allows potential buyers to customize their search by myriad specifications. First, users identify the medium they’re seeking, whether painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, works on paper, or “miscellaneous.” From there, they can filter by country of origin, price, size, orientation, genre, and even dominant color scheme.
With SINGULART’s broad offerings and powerful search function, customers are all but guaranteed to find a work perfectly suited for their space. The company even handles framing and shipping.
“Our aim is to digitally democratize art,” a SINGULART spokesperson told ARTnews.
SINGULART was launched in 2017 by Véra Kempf, Brice Lecompte, and Denis Fayolle. Though she initially pursued a career in politics at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, Kempf nursed an abiding interest in art: At an early age, she was hugely inspired by the work of photojournalist Robert Capa; and Kempf herself studied central European art. She parlayed her erstwhile dreams of starting an NGO into entrepreneurship, participating in Startup Weekend in 2015. Fayolle, a serial entrepreneur, served as one of the jurors. He and Kempf stayed in touch, then connected with Lecompte, an insatiable traveler who first caught the art bug during a stint in India. Upon returning to France, he met Kempf and also came onboard.
SINGULART was founded on a principle of gender equity that still defines the platform five years on: Forty-nine percent of its participating artists are women, compared to just 11 percent in brick-and-mortar galleries worldwide. Any artist can apply for a SINGULART account, but they must be approved to exhibit on the platform. SINGULART’s sister site, balthasart, which launched in 2021, is more open, allowing any EU-based artist to upload and exhibit their work. Geared toward new buyers and up-and-coming artists, balthasart caps art prices at €1,000.
Both sites operate similarly for artists: Once a work is purchased, the artist sends it to the buyer through SINGULART’s prespecified shipping vendor—usually DHL, UPS, or an art shipping specialist—along with a certificate of authenticity. After the artwork is received by the buyer, the artist gets paid. Of that sum, SINGULART takes a 30 to 50 percent commission of the total price, depending on the artist’s renown.
Many of the artists currently exhibiting on SINGULART’s platform are, indeed, quite well known. Filtering by “Acclaimed Artists” turns up works by the likes of Tomi Ungerer, Richard Caldicott, Canal Cheong Jagerroos, Sol Kjøk, and Hassan Massoudy.
But if that’s not your thing—much less your budget—numerous other filters allow you to seek out up-and-comers: “Invest In” artists, “Emerging Artists,” artists who are “Only on SINGULART” and those who are “New Online.”
Those filters are also applicable to SINGULART’s mouthwatering furniture offerings, which range from light fixtures to functional pieces to decor. Much like SINGULART’s fine-art search function, furniture options can be further filtered by dimensions, material, and style, including midcentury modern, Art Deco, rustic, Scandinavian, industrial, and more.
Whether you’re a first-time buyer or a veteran collector seeking out new artists in your area, SINGULART is a stress-free sandbox to play in. Buying art has never been so easy—or so fun.
Learn more and buy art at singulart.com.