063COLLECTOR HOMEappreciated value to acquire more art.
She explains, “Everything we’ve bought
has been an aesthetic decision. We haven’t
thought about artists becoming famous
or their work becoming valuable. When
we were in Covington we went to auction
houses, the Art Academy in Cincinnati as
well as wonderful estate sales.”
“We bought what I call Cincinnati
impressionists,” he adds. “I worked
40 years in product development and
have been able to use my art aesthetic
throughout my career.” There are, in fact,
several pieces of his own creation featured
around their home.
Their friend Thomas Bacher was born in
Cincinnati and went to the academy as well
as to Yale and Pratt. “We began collecting
him when he was a student at the academy,”
he recalls. “Ivan Karp represented him at
O.K. Harris in New York. When he was in
New York, Chuck Close had divided his
studio with drywall and let him use the
other side.” There are a number of Bacher’s
paintings in the collection including one
featuring the collectors themselves.
They have become active in the Museum
of Contemporary Art Tucson. It’s ironic
that I recognized a painting by Robert
Barber in their collection that I had seen in
an exhibition at MoCA last year. It was the
first museum show for the then-92-year-old
artist. (“92½!” he corrected an interviewer.)
Although the couple actively looks for
pieces for their collection, she admits,
“a lot of things were by chance. We went
to Wright auction house in Chicago and
went to their Wright Now department that
has works on consignment. We saw Frank
Gehry’s Cloud light. The Tucson housewas under construction and we were able
to change the wiring to be able to hang it
where we wanted it.”
They were also able to have a wall
reinforced during construction to bear the
weight of a small but heavy wall sculpture
by Jan Albers.
She confides happily, “Art is our religion
and we tithe to it on a regular basis!”1110