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Acquired Taste: The
Art of Collecting
By
Leslie Vincen
Do human beings have an instinctual
need to accumulate things? Ask an avid collector,
someone with an almost primal urge to seek out particular
objects of desire and possess them, and the answer
is an emphatic “yes.”
Pittsburgh’s
famous son Andy Warhol was known to be a packrat
who couldn’t part with anything
he found interesting. Whether Warhol collected almost
everything he touched because he thought that someday
it might tell the world something significant about
the past, or just because he grew up poor and was
saving it for later use, we may never know for sure.
But Jessica Gogan, curator of education at The Andy Warhol
Museum, believes
that “whether we know it or not, we all collect
something.”
Compelled To Collect
For Bob Kerr, a retired engineer and collector of rare minerals
who volunteers his time periodically to catalogue specimens
for the Section of Minerals at Carnegie Museum of Natural
History, “collecting certainly feels like an instinct.”
Kerr
got his start as a collector in the ’80s when he
moved to Arizona for a job and wondered what he could do during
his time off to combat the intense heat. He decided to go underground.
“
The natural beauty underground was incredible,” he
says. “There
was such a contrast between the desert, with its cactus and
mesquite, and the world below, with all those lustrous, crystalline
forms. It’s amazing what Mother Nature can produce.
I got hooked.”
It’s not easy to go digging for
specimens. It can be dangerous and requires expensive equipment.
Most collectors
find it easier to go to mineral shows and barter for their
next prize. In fact, Kerr builds his collection mostly by
buying, trading, and reselling. He specializes in lead-based
minerals;
a subcategory known for its rich color and luster, like gems.
“
I go to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Society Show every year,” says
Kerr. “It’s a huge show, filled with hundreds
of dealers. Most of the new minerals come in from China,
Russia,
Morocco, and South Africa. It’s fun to wheel and
deal. I haven’t paid a dime for most of my specimens.
Frequently, I’ll buy a box lot with several pieces,
then I’ll
keep the piece I want and sell the rest—hopefully
for what I paid for the whole lot.”
What Kerr loves
most about his collection is the incredible variety of
color that is inherent to lead-based crystals.
He’s
fascinated by the fiery personalities of reds, oranges,
and yellows that are showcased in his home from several
wall-mounted
glass cabinets. One of his signature pieces is a
cerrusite v-twin from Morocco that is one of the largest
single cerrusite crystals ever harvested. Another is a
rare wulfenite
plate, generally considered to be among the best of its
species, which came from the Red Cloud Mine in Arizona.
“
For me, collecting means being able to enjoy the beauty of
your collection as often as you want to…not having to
go somewhere else to see it. My collection is on display for
my own viewing. I don’t consider myself an elite-level
collector,
but I do plan to donate my top pieces to the Museum of
Natural History. Private collections are essential to museums.
Without
private donors, they wouldn’t have much,” he says.
Top RIght: Among Kerr’s favorite
pieces is a wulfenite plate, among the best of its species,
harvested from the Red
Cloud
Mine in Arizona.
BottomRight: Kerr and a friend, John Callahan, who owns the
79 Mine in which the two were working, as they handle a large
aurichcalcite specimen that they unearthed.
PHOTOS: Tom Altany
Private Collections, Public Exhibits
Marc Wilson couldn’t agree more. As collections manager
and head of the Section of Minerals at Carnegie Museum of Natural
History, Wilson is keenly aware of the importance of individual
donors to museum acquisitions.
“
Throughout history, museums would not exist if not for private
collectors,” says Wilson. “During the 1800s and
early 1900s, private collectors actually started museums
by donating their collections. In 1904, Andrew Carnegie purchased
the mineral collection of W. W. Jefferis, which provided
the
core mineral collection of the Museum of Natural History.” (See
also Romancing the Stones)
Not
all donations are exhibit-quality, but many are appropriate
for the reference and research collections of the museum.
“
Exhibit pieces are exquisite, natural works of art,” says
Wilson. “We’re seeking beauty, perfection of crystal
form, freedom from damage, and rarity. An exhibit piece has
a unique brilliance that can’t be duplicated. Ore deposits
around the world are like threatened environments; after a
mine closes, you never see it again. Our job is to salvage
specimens while we can.
“
A collection is like a time capsule—it shows the
personal taste of the collector and what was available
at the time,” Wilson notes. “It builds a picture
of our mineralogical heritage and recognizes the collector
as well as the specimen. We have a pedigree of collections
here.”
Two of the most renowned collectors in the
mineralogical world, Bryan Lees and Bryon Brookmyer, have
each made significant
contributions to Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Recently,
Bruce and David Oreck donated $2 million in cash and specimens
to the museum, including a pair of the world’s finest
specimens of watermelon tourmaline from Bruce’s personal
collection, one of which is known as “City in the
Clouds.” “These
specimens put us on par with the best museums in the world,” says
Wilson. “A signature piece immediately identifies
your museum.
“
Museums owe much to their relationships with private collectors.
We have a network of relationships that covers the globe.
People give to people. That’s why relationships
are so important.”
Richard Armstrong, The Henry
J. Heinz II Director of Carnegie Museum of Art, says
that the same can be said for the world
of art. “We like to have a city of collectors all
interested in the museum. Private collections are an index
of how successful
art museums are in their communities.
“
Easily half of the pieces we have on display are gifts
from private donors. There are always wealthy and generous
people
who have long-standing relationships with museums. For
example, G. David Thompson gave us the DeKooning painting,
Woman VI,
which is one of only six in the world.”
Many collectors
identify themselves by visiting the museum and asking questions
about a particular genre or exhibition.
If they are able to establish a relationship with a museum
professional, it can pave the way for a possible donation
in the future.
“
Occasionally, we know beforehand if someone is planning
to donate art,” says Armstrong. “Sometimes
it’s
a very pleasant surprise, like the table by Japanese artist
George Nakashima. It was a fractional gift —the museum
only had inches—and now we have the entire 12 feet.”
All
donations are significant, even ones the museum might not
keep. Sometimes a piece will be accepted under the
category of property, and then sold to raise cash for an
endowment
fund.
Collecting: A Lifestyle
Herbert and Carol Diamond hadn’t given much thought to
whether or not the art they had purchased might be museum-quality.
That is until their collection of French 19th-century drawings
and bronzes was presented as the exhibition Visions,
Fragments, and Impressions at Carnegie Museum of Art in the fall of 2000.
“
Each piece in our collection is a little jewel,” Carol
Diamond says. Her husband adds, “We buy something
because it appeals to us, and we plan to live with it.”
The
Diamonds started collecting art in 1964, when they purchased
a pair of watercolors by Keiko Minami at an
auction in Brooklyn.“We didn’t really think
of it as collecting, we just enjoyed it,” says Carol
Diamond. “At
the time, we were newly married and didn’t have
much discretionary income. So we decided that rather
than buying
each other birthday or anniversary gifts, we’d
buy art instead.”
After celebrating more than 40
anniversaries, the Diamonds have amassed a celebrated
collection of works on paper,
which includes 19th-century French pieces as well as
an American
collection that combines realist, modernist, and early
abstract art.
“
Collecting has become a lifestyle,” says Herbert Diamond, “and
an intellectual pursuit. When we travel, we go to art museums
to see what’s there and to learn about art. And, of course,
we meet such fascinating people…curators, dealers, other
collectors…and they all share our interest.”
Top Right: One of Herbert Diamond’s favorite pieces;
Man in the City’s Outskirts, by Jean François
Raffaëlli.
Bottom Right: A Pittsburgh scene done by Ernest Fiene, which
served as a study for an oil painting that the artist created
for the 1935 Carnegie International. PHOT OS: Tom Altany
Collections that Teach
The Diamonds prefer works on paper because they’re more
immediate and
represent what the artist was thinking at the time. “A
work on paper was often done as a study for a final work done
in oil,” explains Herbert Diamond. “You can see
the artist working through problems. We have a small pencil
sketch of the Study for the Battle of Poitiers by Eugéne
Delacroix, and you can see that the drawing is not about structure,
but about movement. That was the hallmark of his work—movement
in a static image.”
Most of the Diamonds’ favorite
pieces are examples of social realism that depict “the
way life was.” Carol
Diamond loves the expressive flow of The Seamstresses by
Pierre-Charles Angrand, and her husband appreciates the simple
countenance
of Jean François Raffaëlli’s Man in
the City’s
Outskirts.
Herbert Diamond’s preference for realism
makes reference to his background in medicine. As chairman
of medicine at Western
Pennsylvania Hospital and a practicing rheumatologist, he
often gives talks about art and medicine.
“
One of my mentors in medical school told me that the heart
of medicine is to see things,” he says. “I
showed some of my residents the Portrait of Mademoiselle
Goton by
Octave Tassaert. She’s a middle-aged peasant woman—certainly
not the model of beauty for the human form—and the
sketch reveals her arthritic feet. So I asked them, ‘What
kind of arthritis does she have?’ Nobody had an answer!”
At
times a piece in the Diamonds’ collection will produce
an answer that no one was seeking, purely by chance.
“
Some years ago, I was looking through a journal of clinical
science that’s published by the New York Academy of Medicine,” says
Herbert Diamond. “It’s illustrated with paintings,
and I came upon a Pittsburgh scene that was done by Ernest
Fiene for the 1935 Carnegie International. I recognized it
immediately, because we have the original study. I inquired
about it, and discovered that the painting had been owned originally
by the Kaufmann family.”
“
That’s when we say, ‘Wow, we always liked it,
now we’re really impressed!’” adds
Carol Diamond.
No matter how much time they spend collecting
or how diverse their range of collectibles, most serious
collectors have
one simple characteristic in common—a passion for
collecting. Most buy only what they like and often don’t
consider an object’s investment value.
“
We’ve never sold a piece of art,” says Herbert
Diamond. “But we do seek quality pieces for donation
purposes. We’ve already donated some pieces to Carnegie
Museum of Art, and we anticipate that they’ll end up
with a few more.”
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