Solutions for Catalogues Raisonnés

Looking to manage a catalogue raisonné? Read on for some important points to consider.

WHAT KIND OF SYSTEM does A catalogue raisonnÉ need?

The most important tool for the creation and maintenance of a catalogue raisonné is a relational-database information management software system. A quality relational-database system saves untold amounts of time by recording, automatically cross-linking, tracking essential information in one easily accessible place, with no need to enter any information more than once. Besides generating reports in a multitude of formats, a quality system automates the creation of art work bibliography, exhibition, and provenance citations in the correct format, links them to multiple works at once — resulting in the automatic generation of completed art work information sheets, ready to go. In addition, a quality system is able to easily share information with other applications, a Web site, and, if desired, galleries, and perhaps the artist's estate or studio. With this kind of system, users can quickly and automatically perform tasks that were once complicated and time-consuming, including many that before were not even possible.

WHY A QUALITY SYSTEM?

No matter how you look at it, without the right tools, the compilation of a catalogue raisonné can be a time-consuming and profoundly tedious process. Huge amounts of detailed and interrelated art work, art work reference, contact, and other information need to be recorded, tracked, and related. How accurately this information is recorded, clearly it is organized, and efficiently it works together to automate information management tasks is all critical to success. System performance is so important to the catalogue project that the system utilized should be the best available: well proven, comprehensively supported, and designed specifically for the creation of catalogues raisonnés.

WHAT does A QUALITY SYSTEM DO?

A good system integrates all related information. It automates as many information tasks as possible: recording and tracking works, managing contacts, generating labels, lists, and reports, creating complete art work information sheets … pretty much everything imaginable, in the most efficient manner, and in ways particular to the industry's accepted best practices. The 'relational' capacity of the database means that related records (location-artwork-provenance-contact) are only a click away, and any mistakes made in repeated names or terms only need to be corrected once to update the entire system. Often-used pre-filtered lists ('works in studio', 'damaged prints') can be saved to a drop-down selection. A quality system also can tie a project together by successfully integrating other mission-critical software packages such as Acrobat, Word, Outlook — and a Web site.

Does a better system mean a better catalogue raisonnÉ?

What project could not be made better by better management? And as few projects rely more heavily on related information than does a catalogue raisonné, information management is a crucial activity. In considering an information management system, one thing is for sure: the better designed, more powerful, and more integrated a system, the more successful a project can be. In any event, this is definitely not the place to cut corners or try to 'do it yourself', especially when a robust state-of-the-art integrated system can be implemented so inexpensively.

So what is in a quality system?

• Robust software technology to make it strong, stable, flexible, and powerful
• Comprehensive features that are useful and efficient, built by true software developers and refined over many years by the industry's leaders
• Intelligent, elegant, and sophisticated software design to make it intuitive and efficient
• Deep company and staff experience in art management, computers, and software programming
• A large base of successful users proving the system's quality and ensuring its long-term future viability

Click on the above links to find out how Artsystems Studio leads the way in each and every category, and why so many important catalogues raisonnés are created with Artsystems Studio. For more details on Studio, visit the Studio product page.

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