Artists Find Reason to Buy Back Their Own Work

"When I was very young, I sold my work just to make a living," but as the artist Arman got older - he died in 2005 at the age of 76 - he wished he still had some of the art that was pivotal to the development of his career. So, when his 1960 assemblage of French gas masks in a wooden box, entitled "Home Sweet Home II," came up at auction at Sotheby's in London in 2000, he was one of the bidders and ended up paying $326,530 for a work he had sold 45 years before for $6,000. Selling low and buying high is no formula for success, but the French-born artist, who had homes in both Manhattan and Paris, has done well in his career, and anyway this wasn't about money. "I have no works left from 1960," he said. "I wanted a good example for my legacy."

The customary picture of the art world has artists entering the market to sell work, not to buy it, but a number of artists have actively or sporadically sought out their own artwork at galleries and auction houses. These well-known and wealthy artists represent a small but interesting segment of the art market, generally looking for their early work, jockeying with other collectors for it. Their reasons are many: Some want certain pieces back for their own collections; some wish they had never sold a particular work in the first place; some look to deal in their own work, just as any gallery owner might; some try to protect their markets by purchasing pieces that might not get sold or could be sold for a career-damagingly low amount of money.

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