Collecting Stories: Artists as collectors

The artist as collector was the subject of a show at London’s National Gallery in 2016. Entitled ‘Painter’s Paintings: From Freud to Van Dyck’, the exhibition presented the private collections of several masters of canvas painting from European art history.

‘Painter’s Paintings’ revealed the chains of painting technique and subject matter linking artists, through the work they chose to hang in their homes and studios, and which ultimately inspired and influenced their own creative practise. The exhibition demonstrated what one artist can learn from another and their motivation to surround themselves with works by others. These pieces are tokens of friendships, status symbols, and financial investments but most significantly sources of artistic inspiration.

The work that confronted you when entering the show was Corot’s ‘Italian Woman’, the painting that inspired the exhibition. Lucian Freud left the painting to the UK in 2011, after buying it 10 years earlier. Freud was drawn to qualities similar to those found in his own pictures that investigate the human figure. There is a distinct relation to the presence of the figure, the confidently applied brushstrokes and a fascination with the tactile quality of paint to Freud’s own technique.  Freud believed that ‘art came out of art’ and chose to surround himself with paintings to inspire his own work. This raises the question: are other painter’s works simply part of the artists’ tool kit?

Matisse would famously sell paintings to buy new ones, viewing them as having an inspirational purpose, and disposing of them once this function had been fulfilled.

One painting that he chose to keep throughout his career, after buying it in 1899 at great financial sacrifice, was Cezanne’s ‘Three Bathers’. Matisse acknowledged Cezanne’s influence on his own naïve and striking figures, and in particular this painting, which he called ‘his greatest treasure’. Matisse described the painting as having ‘sustained me morally in the critical moments of my venture as an artist, I have drawn from it my faith and perseverance.’ This demonstrates Matisse’s spiritual and visceral connection to the painting and how significantly one artist’s technique can influence another.  

This sense of support and mutual appreciation within the artistic community has been made even more apparent in the last year with the introduction of the Artist Support Pledge. The purpose of this scheme is to encourage patronage between artists through selling works under £200, and pledging to re-invest the same proportion of the funds to purchase another artists work once sales of your own work have reached £1,000. Originally aimed at artists, the scheme has also encouraged many others into the act of collecting.

We asked contemporary artist Deborah Brown what it means to her to collect:

“Like many artists, I own artworks by artist friends and colleagues.  The works in my collection were largely acquired during the time when I directed and programmed Storefront, one of the early artist-run galleries in Bushwick, Brooklyn. It was my habit to acquire works from the shows I organized as a way to support artists’ careers and express my enthusiasm for their practice.

Being surrounded by these works is a daily pleasure. Most of them are hung in my warehouse studio in East Williamsburg where I can see them every day. One wall is hung salon-style with small works, but other works climb other walls in other rooms. Who better than an artist to appreciate another artist’s work?”

Deborah Brown

May 2021

Deborah Brown lives in New York and works in Bushwick/East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a neighbourhood she helped pioneer as an artist and where she started Storefront, one of the first artist-run galleries in the neighbourhood. Brown has a BA from Yale University and an MFA from Indiana University. Recent solo and group exhibitions include: GAVLAK Palm Beach, FL; Burning in Water, New York; Danese/Corey, New York;  The Lodge, Los Angeles and Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art, Houston. Her work is in numerous private, museum and corporate collections and has been included in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Art Forum, Art in America, The Wall Street Journal, ARTnews, Artnet, Juxtapoz Magazine, Galerie Magazine, Madame Figaro, Hyperallergic and ART-Das Kuntsmagazin.

 Images: Deborah Brown’s display of her collection and ‘Call Box’, 2021, by Deborah Brown. Oil on canvas, 60" x 48"