Thoughts on Collecting

I started to collect in a serious way about thirty years ago, drawn immediately and instinctively toward surrealism, not as a category, but as a way of seeing. I have never felt a strict constraint around what qualifies as surreal. It is, as Dalí understood, a latent state of mind. The works I bring into my life carry histories longer than my own. They have inhabited spaces, witnessed dramas, and absorbed the presence of extraordinary people before finding me. A true collector has a responsibility to advance the understanding and appreciation of art. For me that has meant pushing the boundaries of what is considered surreal, bringing artists to further acknowledgment, encouraging scholarship, lending works to exhibitions, and speaking about collecting and Surrealism around the world. In a taxi in New York once, the driver asked what I did. When I told him, he said: “Art is the shortest distance between people.” I asked if I could use that.

Jean Moral (French, 1906–1999), Juliette, 1927, vintage gelatin silver print, 9 × 6 1⁄4 inches