Instagram becomes art marketing tool

London

THE singularity and relatively high cost of most fine art has made it resistant to sales on the Internet. There are not many collectors, it seems, who are willing to spend millions of dollars online. But Instagram has quietly become a commercial game-changer for the art market, a force in influencing auction and gallery transactions, especially for younger buyers.

"I often get contacted by collectors about specific objects I've shown on Instagram, and then that turns into a different conversation," said Matt Carey-Williams, London-based deputy chairman for Europe and Asia at the Phillips auction house.

On Tuesday, Mr Carey-Williams used his personal Instagram account (5,644 followers at the time) to highlight the inclusion of a 1969 Josef Albers painting, Study for Homage to the Square: Wet and Dry, in Phillips' March 8 contempo…