3 Questions

Lawrence Matthews, owner of Matthews Gallery, has been involved with art all his life. He and special guest Matt Horowitz, head of conservation at Goldleaf Framemakers, speak about the process of buying, selling and caring for artwork in the Collector's Forum workshop this Friday evening.

Let's start off with the basics: Is there a right and a wrong way to buy art?
I don't think there's a right way and a wrong way, but I do think there's a better way. I believe people should buy the art that they like and want to live with. If people took a little time to consider how to build a collection, as opposed to just collecting a group of things, it would be a much more enriching experience for them. One of the things I always advise is considering a thematic approach. One might decide to collect only women artists of NM or modernist artists of the 1930s. That gives you a framework to evaluate one work against another.

How does one determine the balance between cost and desire?
I think collecting art should be about one's passion for the art. In other words, at the very basic level, it shouldn't be about the monetary value of art as dictated by the rules of the marketplace, but only about the intrinsic, aesthetic and cultural values of the work and what it means to the individual who collects it. In fact, there have been a number of collectors who've built major collections with very modest means. Classic examples would be Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, who built one of the greatest collections of the 20th century on the salaries of a postal worker and a librarian.

How is Santa Fe's art scene unique to art collecting and selling?
It's unique because of the variety of work that is available here. In some cities, the galleries and things that are being shown in them are very similar. In Santa Fe, you have the historic New Mexico artists who first got this whole scene rolling, but you also have a lot of contemporary artists, some very avant-garde artists and installation art as well. So, it's a broad spectrum of styles that I think is unique throughout the country, in my experience.

Santa Fe Reporter