A day after the news that Amazon’s founder and chief executive, Jeff Bezos, is buying The Washington Post, his company officially entered another cultural arena: art. On Tuesday, the online retailer announced the start of Amazon Art, where customers can buy original and limited-edition art from more than 150 dealers and 4,500 artists, ranging in price from a $10 screen print by the up-and-comer Ryan Humphrey to a $4.85 million painting by Norman Rockwell.
Amazon, which worked with Sotheby’s for a short-lived experiment selling art on the Web in 1999, will now vie with other, more established competitors in the online marketplace, including Artsy and Artnet. Amazon has sought to blunt some of that competitive pressure by partnering with Paddle8, an online auction site, among other players.
“Amazon Art gives galleries a way to bring their passion and expertise about the artists they represent to our millions of customers,†said Peter Faricy, the company’s vice president for the Amazon Marketplace.
Erik Fairleigh, an Amazon spokesman, said that the commission scale is similar to what other sellers that use Amazon pay: between 5 and 20 percent, depending on the price of the artwork. Amazon is not providing an ironclad guarantee of authenticity, but Mr. Fairleigh said that the company is “working with prestigious galleries and dealersâ€Â to ensure quality and would investigate any potential problems and “take appropriate action.â€
