When people ask why I collect art, they’re often expecting me to talk about beautiful paintings, investment potential, or decorating a home.
Those things can certainly matter. But they’re not what keeps me collecting.
What I love most about collecting art is simple.
Every artwork has the potential to become the beginning of a much larger story.
One purchase leads to another artist. An artist leads to a museum. A museum leads to an archive. An archive leads to a forgotten exhibition, a long-out-of-print catalog, or a conversation with someone who has spent decades studying a single painter. Before long, what began as buying a picture has turned into research, friendships, travel, and writing.
I sometimes describe the art world as having endless branching paths. Every collector follows different ones.
Down the Rabbit Hole: Investigating a New Acquisition
A few years ago, I bought a 1923 painting from a collector-dealer in New Jersey.
Months later, he suggested I look at a 1946 painting by James Edward Peck that was coming up for auction in Seattle. I bought it largely because I liked the work.
Then the real adventure began.
The painting still carried old exhibition labels. Museum records filled in more of its history. One discovery led to another until I realized I was reconstructing the career of an artist who had once exhibited widely but is now largely forgotten.
What started as a purchase eventually became an article for a specialized journal. Along the way, I learned more about American art history than I ever expected from a single painting.
Finding Another Rabbit Hole: Reginald Marsh
The same thing has happened with Reginald Marsh (1898–1954).
Most people know Marsh for his paintings of Coney Island crowd scenes, burlesque theaters, and New York streets. I was drawn to a different part of his work: his railroad and transit scenes.
That interest has taken me far beyond collecting. I’ve spent time studying Marsh’s work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. I’ve learned about printmaking and paper conservation. I’ve begun work on a book devoted to Marsh’s railroad art.
Perhaps most unexpectedly, I found myself corresponding with the art historian who wrote the catalogue raisonné of Marsh’s prints. Now in his nineties, he had known Marsh personally and devoted much of his career to preserving the artist’s legacy. It seemed remarkable that a painting purchased decades after Marsh’s death could eventually lead to conversations with someone who had actually known him.
Those kinds of connections happen surprisingly often in the art world.
Using My Unique Skills
To borrow from Liam Neeson’s character in Taken, collecting also draws on skills I developed in entirely different careers.
My years as an investment research analyst taught me how to investigate evidence, follow paper trails, and enjoy solving puzzles. Those same instincts now help me research provenance, identify overlooked artists, and reconstruct the histories behind individual works of art.
My work advising marketing agencies has proven just as useful. I enjoy helping early-career artists think strategically about their careers, commissions, publications, and audiences.
Supporting artists doesn’t end when I purchase a painting.
Finding Your Own Mission as a Collector
Some collectors simply enjoy living with beautiful art. That’s a perfectly good reason to collect.
For me, the artwork itself is only the beginning.
Every artwork opens another door. Some lead to archives. Others lead to museums. Some become articles or books. Others lead to friendships with artists, curators, collectors, and historians.
Every artwork begins as an object. If you’re curious enough, it becomes a story.
That’s why I love collecting art. I never know where the next artwork will take me.