This document provides an overview of collecting and collectors. It begins with definitions of collecting and a collector. It then discusses the history of collecting, from ancient religions to the rise of modern museums. It also examines the relationships collectors have with dealers, auction houses, artists, curators, and other collectors. The document provides insights into collecting from an academic perspective, looking at it as a social practice and how it relates to cultural capital. Finally, it gives examples of prominent contemporary collectors like Charles Saatchi, Mitch Rales, David Walsh, and Jose Mugrabi to illustrate different styles of collecting.

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Collectors and Collecting
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2. Agenda
Definitions
History
Relationships
Insights
Examples
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3. Definitions
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4. Definitions
col·lect1 [kuh-lekt]
verb (used with object)
to gather together; assemble: The professor collected
the students' exams.
to accumulate; make a collection of: to collect stamps.
to receive or compel payment of: to collect a bill.
to regain control of (oneself or one's thoughts,
faculties, composure, or the like): At the news of her
promotion, she took a few minutes to collect herself.
to call for and take with one: He drove off to collect his
guests. They collected their mail.
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5. Definitions
Dimensions
• Buying vs. collecting
• Individual vs. social
• e.g., Craig Robins vs. David Zwirner
• Narrative
• Temporality

6. Definitions
“An art collection usually starts innocently with one
print, a watercolor or a drawing – then another, and
another. At some point in the collecting, the fever
strikes, buying accelerates and all is lost. It’s the
point at which a casual art buyer becomes a
serious art collector. Before long there is no more
room on the walls, on the floor or in the closets.
And then comes the inevitable question, ‘Where did
all this stuff come from?’ Which is followed by, ‘I must
stop buying!’ It’s a resolution rarely kept, for the
addicted collector can always justify the purchase of
one more piece that is essential to the collection.”
– Anthony Petullo
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7. Definitions
“The dedicated collector is animated by a desire to
own everything within a limited field… He needs the
flair of a hunter, the mentality of a detective, the
objectivity of a historian and the natural cunning of a
horse dealer…
Art collecting involves a permanent conflict
between what the eye sees and what it reads,
between instinct and scientific research. There are
occasions when both sides of this struggle prove
powerless and pointless.”
Rheims, Maurice. The Strange Life of Objects. 1964.
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8. History
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9. History
“Practices of collecting have always played a central role
in human culture, at the heart of our meaningful relations
with objects. Ancient religions collected sacred objects…
When art became secular, the wealthy collected paintings
and sculptures to display their power and taste. The rise
of science gave birth to cabinets of curiosity… The
advent of the modern museum codified and ordered
such anarchic assemblages… Collecting is, moreover not
just a matter of history, institutions, and eccentrics; nearly
every child makes collections of anything… So collecting
is both deeply enmeshed in the basic processes of
cultural meaning and found in the roots of almost
every personal history.
Moist and Banash, Contemporary Collecting. 2013
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10. History
“One notable difference between European collections
and those in the United States is that the latter, as a rule,
do not remain in the family for several generations…
Either the bulk of the collection is sold, goes to a
museum or gallery, or forms the basis of a new one; and
each generation of collectors starts virtually de novo,
free to give scope to its own tastes and interests.”
Constable. Art Collecting in the United States of
America. 1964.
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11. History
“The virtual necessity of each generation of collectors
beginning at the beginning…has helped to give
American collecting a remarkable enterprise and
readiness to experiment, and to create in the collector
the feeling that the collection is a reflection of his
own tastes and personality… [I]t has also helped
stimulate another characteristic of American collecting,
far more general that it has ever been in Europe, namely
the conscious intention of the collector that his collection
should not pass to his descendants, but ultimately
benefit the community.”
Constable. Art Collecting in the United States of
America. 1964.
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12. History
“Nevertheless, the pattern of American collecting is
changing… Indeed, the only kind of large-scale
collection that can fairly easily be brought together
(provided money is available) are those of contemporary
art, or historical collections… The larger collections which
are being formed today are almost invariably destined to
go to a museum or to be made into a museum, and in
the interim may have to be shown or stored in a museum,
or sometimes put into a warehouse.”
Constable. Art Collecting in the United States of
America. 1964.
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13. Relationships
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14. Relationships
Collectors vis-à-vis:
• Dealers / gallerists
• Auction houses
• Artists
• Curators & art historians
• Other collectors
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15. Relationships
Larry’s List
• Over 3,100 profiles of collectors, their collections,
and their engagements with the art world
• Searchable by collector and artist
• Profiles can be purchased individually or via prepaid credits
• Compiles collected information into a ranking based
on internet presence, institutional engagement, art
fair participation, communication platforms, physical
presence, and collection size
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16. Insights
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17. Insights
“These buyers have a tremendous surplus of economic
capital and an equally large deficit of social and cultural
capital, to put it in the late French sociologist Pierre
Bourdieu's terms. By buying contemporary art, they buy
access to a social world. When they spend hundreds of
thousands or even millions of dollars on goods whose longterm value is far from guaranteed, these collectors engage
in a kind of potlatch, even if here they are accumulating
status not by purposely destroying wealth but by risking it.
And by subsequently loaning or donating these works to
museums, they further increase their social standing...”
Velthuis. “Accounting for Taste.” 2008.
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18. Insights
Growing area of academic interest and inquiry
• Collecting as practice
• As part of long-term history, stress on context,
relationship between collections and ideas of
knowledge, relationship between collections and
social practice
• Collecting as poetic
• Meaning of collections to individuals, symbolic
dimensions, structuring life through collecting
• Collecting as politics
• Role in creating patterns of other, problems of ‘high
culture’ and values, role in creating change
Pearce. On Collecting. 1995.
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19. Examples
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20. Examples
Charles Saatchi
• Young British Artists & Sensation
• Publicity central to collecting practice
• Online ventures
• Physical spaces
• Media profile
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21. Examples
Mitch Rales
• Washington, DC, industrialist
• Collection primarily housed at Glenstone Foundation
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22. Examples
David Walsh
• Australian on-line gambling entrepreneur
• Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania
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23. Examples
Jose Mugrabi
• Textile tycoon
• Collection of over 3,000 works
• Roughly 800 Warhols
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24. Examples
Herb and Dorothy Vogel
• Postal worker and librarian
• Collected almost 4,800 works of art, including pieces by
many renowned artists (e.g., Chamberlain, Christo)
• Bought directly from artists
• Ultimately donated the collection to the National Gallery
of Art, with 50 works going to an institution in each of the
50 states.
• Subjects of two documentaries.
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25. “Every passion borders on chaos, that of the collector on
the chaos of memory.”
Walter Benjamin, ‘Ich packe meine Bibliothek aus” (quoted
in Philipp Blom, To Have and to Hold)
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26. Further reading
Constable, W. G. Art Collecting in the United States of
America. 1964.
Moist, Kevin M. and David Banash, eds. Contemporary
Collecting: Objects, Practices, and the Fate of Things. 2013.
Pearce, Susan M. On Collecting: An Investigation into
Collecting in the European Context. 1995.
Rheims, Maurice. The Strange Life of Objects: Thirty-five
Centuries of Collecting. 1964.
Velthuis, Olav. “Accounting for Taste.” Artforum. March
2008.
Wagner, Ethan and Thea Westreich. Collecting Art for Love,
Money and More. 2013.
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27. www.skatepress.com
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