Dean Art Investments, a new hedge fund that will invest in the fine arts market, has become the first fund to join the Harbour Capital Partners hedge fund platform. Dean Art is expected to launch with $50 million.

The fund will invest in a broad range of artworks, with an emphasis on Old Masters, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Modern Art, avoiding those areas the fund believes will underperform the market. Investments in individual works of art are expected to be in the £500,000 (US$885,860) to £3 (US$5.3 million) million range.

Dean Art will be an open-ended, Jersey, Channel Islands-based Incorporated Cell Co., a structure that enables individual investors to choose to be part of the general fund or to have their own distinct cell portfolios. The fund will also accept artworks as investment on an agreed valuation basis (in specie investment). Individual artworks owned by the fund can be leased to shareholders, institutions, corporations and individuals through a separate leasing company.

“The art market is performing strongly, in marked contrast to the world’s stock markets” said Jeremy Eckstein, an investment consultant for the fund and formerly of Sotheby’s “New sources of demand for good quality art are facing an intrinsically fixed supply and are providing strong support for prices. The correlation between equity markets and art prices has rarely been weaker.”

“Art as an asset class offers investors non-correlation to traditional funds, although the management team intends to use our services to operate the fund as an institutional grade investment fund, with the infrastructure and regulatory framework adequate to the requirements of modern investors,” said Steve Williams, Harbour’s CEO.

Harbour Capital Partners is a hedge fund investment management platform, based in London.