by David and Kimberly Dougherty
Our art collecting journey began quite unexpectedly. Kim joined me on what was supposed to be a short business trip to Paris, France, in December of 1995. Things changed, however, when a French Transportation Workers strike shut down all the airports and our stay was extended by several days. Not a bad place to be stranded! We headed for the Louvre. It too was closed (turns out the French Museum Workers sympathized with Transportation Workers).
We spent our time walking the city and eventually found our way to the Left Bank. Upon entering one of the many galleries, we fell in love with two paintings (a landscape and still life) by contemporary French artists. We couldn’t decide, so we purchased both to commemorate a very memorable unplanned vacation. A few days later the airports reopened and we flew back to the States, but we had been “bitten” by the art collecting bug.
Back in Cincinnati, a mutual friend introduced us to Pat and Chuck Weiner, who ran an art gallery in town. We became very close friends with Pat and Chuck. Over many a dinner and plenty of wine, we talked about our desire to build an art collection around our love of the outdoors and of Cincinnati. We especially wanted to feature Cincinnati artists, recognizing their prominence and their significant contributions to painting around the world. We wanted to invest, ideally, in paintings that were examples of an artist’s best work and that brought beauty, joy, and fascination to our home.
Over the course of 25 years, we built a collection (with assistance from Pat and Chuck) that features some of the best work by famous Cincinnati artists like Duncanson, Potthast, Whittredge, Sharp, Mosler, Sonntag, Nourse, and, of course, Duveneck. And we have added many beautiful landscapes by famous 19th and 20th century American artists, like Lawson, Lewis, Gruppe, and Thieme. The collection has brought joy not only to our family but to many others as well, as groups from the Cincinnati Art Museum and Cincinnati Art Club have toured the collection over the years.
We hope the next generation of collectors can enjoy these works as much as our family and friends have enjoyed them!
Upcoming exhibition:
The David and Kim Dougherty Collection
Eisele Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio
June 22 through August 11, 2018
“The exhibition is composed of paintings from the collection of David and Kim Dougherty, a collection of historically significant American painters of the 19th and early 20th century. All of the work in the exhibition is available for purchase.”
For more information, please visit eiselefineart.com.
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