A Spotlight on the Fine Art Collections of Contemporary Artists
By Rose Fredrick
Wondering what to collect next? Here’s a tip: ask an artist.
This does sound counterintuitive — “Don’t artists make enough work to fill their own homes?” — but artists are, in fact, some of the most knowledgeable, insightful, and avid (bordering on obsessive) collectors you’ll ever meet.
“As artists, we already love and appreciate art, and we are most likely surrounded by it in our daily lives,” oil painter Paula Holtzclaw replies when asked about her decades-long collecting journey. Sculptor Kevin Box explains it this way: “I look at my own artwork for eight to 10 hours a day at the studio. I don’t want to go home and look at my work.” The painter of surreal figures Steven DaLuz adds, “Artists like to surround themselves with beauty, mystery, and humankind’s interpretation of our fleeting existence.”
See what I mean? Artists know artists and what drives them, and they understand that there’s something more powerful going on beneath the surface of great works. When you factor in the nonconformist attitude artists tend to embrace, suddenly the “why” of someone buying art moves into a deeper realm. For example, artists often acquire work that pushes them to keep striving for something more in their own work, something more profound within themselves.
I decided to approach eight talented artists to learn about, and from, their collecting habits, which rival those of many connoisseurs with far greater means.
Nature Vs. Nurture
If it’s true that collectors possess some special DNA passed down from their hunter-gatherer ancestors, this might explain why many artists heed the desire to acquire more objects than their spaces can accommodate. For them, collecting may well be a modern-day hunt that satisfies like no other.
“My grandfather was an avid collector; he frequented auctions and yard sales looking for antiques and paintings,” recalls landscape painter and art dealer Todd Montanaro. To this day he thinks about a painting he saw as a child, a Parisian scene his grandfather had purchased. “I inherited the collecting gene from him,” Montanaro says with a laugh, “but not the painting!”
“My collection is built on the rare compulsion that comes over me when I see a piece that I must own,” says landscapist Stephanie Marzella, who buys when she absolutely connects with another artist’s personal expression.
According to colorist painter Manon Sander, being introduced to art at an early age probably has something to do with it. “When I was a child, I would catch my dad standing in front of the paintings in our home, studying them for a long time. Back then I thought it looked boring, just to stand and stare. Funny, now I do the same thing. My dad had so much appreciation for art; I guess I inherited that from him.”
Continue reading this article in Fine Art Connoisseur, November/December 2023.
Attention Art Collectors!
May 20-22, 2025: Visit the Plein Air Convention & Expo’s robust pop-up art gallery at the Nugget Casino Resort in Reno, Nevada, where hundreds of artists, including our master faculty, will have studio and plein air works on display and ready to purchase. Register for the full event at PleinAirConvention.com now.
View more artist and collector profiles here at FineArtConnoisseur.com.
