About

Great Art was started by Hubert Humperdinck when he was a schoolboy in Nelson in 1975, although it didn't have a name then. Hubert had an art teacher who would regularly bring artworks to school to show the pupils. The teacher would talk passionately about the different pieces of art. She showed the pupils how the artworks were created and discussed their possible meaning and what she felt the artists were conveying. Hubert was hooked. He started to look around for artworks to collect for himself.

Initially, he found artworks here and there in old second-hand shops or by visiting elderly ladies and offering to value their artworks for them. One day he found a particularly nice work by a New Zealand artist called Colin McKenzie. He took it to a gallery to have it valued and was pleasantly surprised to find it was worth about ten times as much as he had paid for it. He sold it to the gallery on the spot. This gave him the idea that he could buy and sell art to build his collection.

Around this time Hubert came up with his main idea: he would make it a principle when he sold a piece of art to use the proceeds to buy two pieces to replace it. In this way his collection would grow quickly. He wanted to balance this with collecting work by artists with established reputations or ones who were up and coming, so that he could build a quality collection. So, he has searched far and wide for the right pieces of art to acquire.

In 1999 Hubert decided to make art collecting his main focus. He established his company, Great Art, and has been collecting art full-time ever since. Currently, he has hundreds of pieces of art, including many that are considered to be significant works. The idea came to him that it would be wonderful to be able to share his artworks with people from around the world, so he has started this website, which showcases the art he has collected.