050 http://www.AmericanArtCollector.com
ur collectors’ home in the Palm Springs,
California, area is 2,000 miles and light-
years away from their home on the East
Coast. His mother had a gallery in San Francisco
and he grew up collecting, later developing an early
interest in 19th-century French prints and drawings.
The French connection comfortably carries over to
their California house in an eclectic mix of tramp
art and contemporary paintings of Palm Springs’
midcentury aesthetic.
A midcentury lithograph by Henri Matisse
(1869-1954) fits comfortably in the sparse and
bright spaces of the home (the couple protects
their collection from the direct sun of the desert
with filtering film and drapes at the windows). The
collector purchased the Matisse from a California
book dealer friend. It was heavily foxed but was
restored by an East Coast conservator. Foxing is
an age-related process that affects works on paper
and appears as brown spots and discoloration. A
conservator can remove it without compromising
the integrity of the paper.
The collector relates how he was trying to help a
friend form a collection. They saw a Matisse litho-
graph at a print show and he told his friend, “One of
us is going to be leaving with that print.” The gears
meshed and his friend was the one to leave with it.
In the last three months, his friend has purchased
40 pieces for his own collection.23