“Coming from my background, which was a very segregated upbringing in Tennessee, I felt that abstraction reflected the best expression of self-determination and free will,” said the artist James Little, 67. “I have this affinity for color, design, structure and optimism.”

Those qualities apply to both the paintings he collects and his own works, which are characterized by hard-edged geometry and shifting colors, with compositions strongly informed by jazz.

The Garment District apartment where Mr. Little lives with his wife, Fatima Shaik, a writer, is hung with dynamic abstractions by artists including Toshio Iwasa, Stanley Whitney, Thornton Willis and Stewart Hitch.

A woven handmade paper piece by Al Loving was a trade between friends who met when Mr. Little arrived in the city in 1976 with a new M.F.A. from Syracuse University. “Al knew everybody in the art world,” he said. Their work was exhibited in a 1977 group show at Just Above Midtown alongside that of other African-American abstract artists.