Simply the best - art collectors

Few of us have billions, or even millions to invest in our art collections. Most of us are lucky to have some works by local artists and maybe a few extraordinary pieces. However, there is a rare breed out there who chooses to not just invest their bags of money in houses, luxury yachts, and cars - but in really great art.

I came across a really great slideshow from Forbes that lists the world's top billionaire art collectors, including Eli Broad, Francois Pinault, and members of the Lauder family.

click here to see the slideshow and see one example below:

Steven Cohen

Art collection: $750 million

Hedge fund titan has been a prolific buyer of art, said to have spent upward of $500 million in recent years. He paid David Geffen a record $137 million for a de Kooning, a month after having paid him $63.5 million for another de Kooning. He agreed to pay $139 million for a Picasso, but the sale fell apart after seller Stephen Wynn put his elbow through the painting. Also owns Damien's Hirst's 13-foot shark (pictured); encased in formaldehyde, it reportedly rotted and was replaced. His SAC Capital bought a stake in Sotheby's auction house earlier this year.

Software

If your art collection consists of your 3-year-old's finger paintings, then your art collection organizational tools probably consist of the front of your refrigerator, the trash bin, and perhaps a cardboard box... for the really good ones.

However, if you are seriously collecting art, then it is important to keep track of your collection with something other than paper and pen - after all, we are living in the digital age now.

Coming to our rescue are art collection management systems! Designed to keep track of sales, purchases, leads, reports, and much more, software systems like these can be tailored to your needs. There are a lot of them out there, some are free and online, while some of the more advanced systems cost a little more. Below are some links:

ArtSystems - a pretty advanced system for galleries and larger collections

ArtBase - excellent - many NYC galleries use this

My Art Collection - a little less sophisticated but good for smaller collections

Craig Robins' residency program

Today I'm going to shift focus just a little bit...

One of the great things about being an avid art collector is getting to know artists. Not only do art collectors meet gallerists, museum directors, and other art world insiders, but collectors often become close with the artists they collect. That love for art and artists, combined with an often larger than life checkbook can actually be used for something quite good...

Craig Robins, an American art collector (and man behind Art Basel Miami Beach), has envisioned and is supporting a very large art residency in Miami (through the University of Miami). Every two years, 25 international artists would take part in the program, which hopes to be very non-traditional and is estimated to cost $7 million for the first 3 years.

click here to read more about Craig Robins' residency

Yale & Conservation

Today I was posting at another blog of mine about one of my favorite art museums (the Yale University Art Gallery) and realized that their current exhibition focuses on one of my favorite topics I cover on this blog. I have recently been posting about the importance of conservation and the ethics surrounding it (here and here), and think this is a show that I definitely have to get up there to see.

Yale University Art Gallery

New Haven, CT

Time Will Tell: Ethics and Choices in Conservation

through September 6, 2009

This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to explore the process of fine-arts conservation, uncovering the relationship between curators and conservators and the objects entrusted to their care. Each of the works in the exhibition illustrates a different conservation dilemma. The passage of time impacts not only the physical state of an object but also the techniques used to preserve it. Time Will Tell examines the evolving science of conservation and the questions that arise in preserving works of art while staying faithful to the artists’ intentions.

Eli Broad's Basel Bash

Last week, one of the world's richest art collectors, Eli Broad, and his wife, hosted an extravagant party in honor of this year's Art Basel. The event took place in their California home, which could easily be mistaken for a contemporary art museum or gallery, with their extensive art collection. The Broads' collection is astonishing, and guests mingled and ate, all the while surrounded by some of the best art made over the past 50 years.

W Magazine wrote about the party:
Almost everything about a recent dinner at Eli Broad’s Los Angeles home in honor of the 40th anniversary of Art Basel was outsize, starting with the estate itself. Visitors approached the mansion—designed in part by Frank Gehry—through a private sculpture park, then entered a sitting room the size of a hotel lobby before descending a stairway into a series of double-height galleries. “This is bigger than the Gagosian Gallery,” said fashion-world fixture Richard Buckley as he arrived at the first subterranean white cube, with its cranelike Calder sculpture and pair of giant Chuck Close portraits. A moment later Ann Philbin, director of UCLA’s Hammer Museum, summed up the installation with a wry understatement: “Not bad,” she said, in a tone that meant something more like, Can you believe? ...

keep reading the W Magazine story about the Broad Basel party

Herb and Dorothy Vogel

If you are an art collector, an artist, or an enthusiast, you have got to love the story of Herb and Dorothy Vogel - very unlikely, but very important art collectors.

Self described art lovers, they married in 1962. After Herb's brief stint as an artist (and a painting student at NYU), they moved on to modest careers and to collecting art. The couple decided to live on Dorothy's salary as a librarian, and to use Herb's salary from the U.S. Postal Service to buy works of art.

The Vogels' collection amassed to over 4000 pieces during the course of 40 years. They kept much of it in their rent-controlled, one bedroom apartment, covering the walls, floors, furniture, etc. with as much art as possible.

The Vogels plan to donate 2500 works from their collection to public institutions - 50 works to each 50 states.

Click here to see the NY Daily News article on the Vogel art collection

More information about Megumi Sasaki's documentary HERB & DOROTHY

Basel Art Fairs

As art collectors, art fairs can be some of the best places to acquire new work. Art fairs are typically large indoor events defined by the "booths" that each gallery/venue represents. The booths are stocked with some of the best work from the gallery's roster, and can be particularly good places to find contemporary and emerging art.

Later this week, Basel, Switzerland will be hosting a slew of fairs surrounding Art Basel, including Liste, VOLTA, Scope, to name a few. What happens with sales there this year will be an interesting marker to gauge the current state of the art market.

Click here for a list of art fairs in Basel this year.