1. How and when did you begin collecting? What was the first photograph you bought?
I began collecting 12 years ago. The first photograph that I purchased was a vintage print by Carlotta Corpron, an abstract study of shadows in black-and-white. It was purchased from a friend who was a collector who had been kind enough to let me live in his apartment after I graduated from college. He had an art collection, and I realized that the quality of appreciation for a work of art changes when one lives with it, has time to reflect and consider it, and to see it in an evolving way. For me this is the chief reason to collect, I experience art in a completely different way by living with it rather than seeing it once or twice in a museum.
2. What do you consider your first real success in collecting? Your biggest failure? What is your prize?
My first success in collecting was purchasing a portfolio of Hans Bellmer prints. My biggest failure has been passing up the chance to acquire some rare Duane Michals works that were offered to me. My prize in collecting is my Joel-Peter Witkin en-caustic entitled Printemps.
3. What is your concentration or theme in collecting now, if any?
I started by collecting based solely on what appealed to me at an intuitive level, it was only later that I realized what my theme was by examining what I had assembled. One day a photographer saw my collection and said “Oh, you are a black-and-white people guy.” By that he meant that most of my collection is black-and-white, and most images have a person in them, although only some would be considered portraits, others set-up photographs, fashion work, reportage, etc. I believe that Helmut Newton dryly remarked once about landscapes something like, “They all tend to be a bit dull, don’t they?” I suppose that extroverts find people pictures more appealing and introverts are drawn to landscapes due to their internal orientation. Landscapes are only 2% of my collection, but I do enjoy the few that I have quite a bit.
4. What is your approach? Do you go on instinct? Do you buy from galleries, dealers, auctions, and/or directly from artists?
I have purchased from galleries, dealers, auctions, artists, garage sales, and other collectors. Some of the photographs that I treasure most cost less than a few hundred dollars. A piece must have something that appeals at a deep and timeless level, photographs involving celebrity bore me and are ephemeral. I want something that speaks to a deeper spiritual level of life or the human experience, and often I cannot always articulate or understand why something is successful in that way.
5. Is there any other photography collector you especially admire?
I admire my friend Herbert Lust, a great Witkin collector and art collector in general. He taught me that you must only buy what you love and want to live with, and that a great work of art has some quality of mystery to it. If you can completely articulate why it is appealing and good, it probably is not going to be compelling or long lasting in its merit.
6. Is the idea of collecting vintage work important to you?
Vintage for me is interesting in that it conveys the artist’s original intent properly. For example, vintage Disfarmer prints are completely different from the posthumous prints made from negatives discovered later, in that the original prints have burning and dodging which reflects a gentleness Disfarmer had to the human imperfections laid bare by his sharp and large negatives. If, as Ansel Adams said “the negative is the score and the print the performance,” then the vintage print, if it is a good one, can be like stepping back in time to see a beautiful performance exactly as the master intended.
7. How important is investment potential versus esthetic pleasure in choosing what to buy?
If one is spending a good deal of money on a work of art, he or she should buy carefully and at a fair price. That said, buying art in hopes that it will increase in value is a dull endeavor and holds no interest. There are far easier ways to make money, and it is a cynical exercise to simply acquire what one believes others will pay more dearly for in the future.
8. If there is one picture you would like to buy but haven’t been able to, what would that be?
A vintage print of Steichen’s portrait of Gloria Swanson.
