Today I am going to quote 10 art collectors about the reasons why they collect art as part of the series 10 on the 10th. Please enjoy and comment: what are your reasons?

10 Quotes about collecting art

“Collecting is not really about art, or Pez Dispensers, or whatever. Collecting is about collecting.”

(David Blanchard)

“Collecting at its best is very far from mere acquisitiveness; it may become one of the most humanistic occupations, seeking to illustrate by the assembling of significant reliques, the march of the human spirit in its quest for beauty…”

(Arthur Davison Ficke)

“I started collecting art (…) simply because I wanted pictures to hang on the wall. I noticed what a difference a picture could make to the ambience of a room, and indeed how shifting work around could change a room’s whole feeling.”

(Michael Audain)

“I primarily buy art to show it off.”

(Charles Saatchi)

“Earning money is one dimension of life; family, emotions and having friends is another; collecting is yet another. This dimension involves excitement, feelings, decisions, investment – not just one of these but all of them together – an adventure for life.”

(Jean-Pierre Lehmann, in: Adam Lindemann, Zeitgenössische Kunst sammeln, Taschen 2006, p. 184, trans. Andrea Buckland)

“If a patron buys from an artist who needs money, the patron then makes himself equal to the artist; he is building art into the world; he creates.”

(Ezra Pound)

“I do not invest in art as a financial instrument. Art is an investment in quality of life.” (…)”Art is there to stimulate our minds and to question our ways of thinking and not to be simply a further financial investment!”

(Francesca von Habsburg, in: Adam Lindemann, Zeitgenössische Kunst sammeln, Taschen 2006, p. 169, trans. Andrea Buckland)

“What artists think about the world is often different from how we businessmen see it, and I find that an enriching experience.”

(Eli Broad)

“What interests me most about art is to understand the spirit of the artists’ ideas and to participate in the process of their work by providing them with conditions under which they can develop ambitious new projects. It is precisely the unknown, the not-understood, which fascinates me in contemporary art. “

(Bernardo Paz, in: Adam Lindemann, Zeitgenössische Kunst sammeln, Taschen 2006, p. 194, trans. Andrea Buckland)

„If buying art is to matter to us deeply, then it has to engage with our emotions and bring something to what one might as well, and with no supernatural associations whatsoever, call our souls.“

(Alain de Botton)

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