These days, retail investors have a myriad of options to grow their portfolios beyond traditional equities, bonds, or funds. The new opportunities open to them range from cryptocurrencies to NFTs and beyond. But you might be surprised to learn that they can also invest in an asset class that has long been largely restricted to the very wealthy: physical fine art. In this segment of Backstage Pass, recorded on Dec. 20, Fool contributors Jason Hall and Rachel Warren discuss one company that is making investing in fine art more accessible than ever before. 10 stocks we like better than WalmartWhen our award-winning analyst team has an investing tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* They just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Walmart wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks Stock Advisor returns as of 6/15/21 Jason Hall: Art, auctions -- everything is worth money now, apparently, whether it's real art, like at Christie's, $7.1 billion in revenue this year, whether it's NFT art -- man, and I could've drawn that stuff in basic back in like fifth grade, too, it's crazy [laughs] the money people are paying for stuff. Here's the question. Rachel, you brought this one to me, right? This is an area where an asset category that there's certainly been a lot more interest from investors over the past few years. Are you interested in, Rachel, art as an asset class? Rachel Warren: Yeah, I am, and this has become more of a recent interest of mine. I feel like we talk about investing so much, and I feel like people don't often think about art -- I know I haven't -- as something that ordinary retail investors can actually diversify with. I'm still learning about it right now, but I recently discovered this platform that I've been reading about, called Masterworks. I think I sent an article about this to you guys a couple of weeks ago. Hall: Yep. Warren: The company was only founded in 2017. On the company website, it says, "Our mission is to democratize art investing, a $1.7 trillion asset class." Basically, how it works: This is a privately held start-up. There was an interesting rundown of the company on CNBC, saying, "Masterworks is making the world of art a little less exclusive by offering everyday investors the chance to own a fraction of these high-priced investments with a much smaller amount of money." So, basically, whether you want to invest in Warhol, Banksy, Picasso, or Monet, there's options on there. How it works is, Masterworks buys a painting. They file it with the SEC as a public offering in a way that's similar to how a company becomes publicly traded, and then shares of that painting are available for investors to purchase through the Masterworks platform. And you can invest in, for example, a Picasso, for $20 a share and up. According to Masterworks, they launch a new painting every four to five days. What's interesting is, according to CNBC, "the platform stands out especially for using proprietary data to determine which artist markets have the most momentum." Hall: They've spent a ton of money and hired a lot of art experts to build out their platform. They really have. It's an interesting story -- keep going. Warren: "Individual investors are limited to owning no more than 10% of an individual work of art. Masterworks charges a 1.5% annual management fee, and then the company takes 20% of any profits from an artwork's sale." I don't know. I find this so fascinating. There was a report by Citi on data for Masterworks, and according to this report, "between 1985 and 2018, the art market's return has been relatively in line with that of fixed income." Then, according to other data that I found for Masterworks, "between 1995 and 2021, that contemporary art market" -- so one sliver of the art market -- "has delivered an annualized return of 13.6% while the S&P 500, has delivered an annualized return of about 9.5% during that period." This definitely isn't for everyone, but I love the idea of investing in something that's really beautiful. Investing in a piece of history, for example, if you're investing in classical art, whatever that might be, or contemporary art, and being able to do so with an investment a small as $20? I love that, so I want to read more about this, but I just discovered this and I'm fascinated by it, honestly. Hall: I have to confess, to me, it's almost like paying for a timeshare that they don't let you go to. Warren: [laughs] Right. Where's my painting? [laughs] That's the only downside, but not everyone can own a Monet, you know what I mean?The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source