I think we are all curious about how people we love and admire live. I certainly am. I want to see the art they choose, the books they keep, the objects they collect, and how they put everything together. Sarah Harrelson’s new book, The Cultured Collector, grew out of her CULTURED magazine Collector Questionnaire series and takes us inside 30 extraordinary collections around the world.
I was featured in the series in 2022, and the photographs taken of my home and art collection remain my favorites of any that have ever been made. Seeing my home through someone else’s lens was a revelation. I recognized everything in the photographs, of course, yet the compositions and perspectives allowed me to see relationships I hadn’t consciously considered. Someone else’s eye helped me understand my own choices in a new way.
The book offers that same opportunity to look closely at how other people arrange their lives. A collection tells us something about a person’s interests, experiences, and sensibilities, and the placement of an object can be as revealing as the decision to acquire it. I am especially interested in what happens when works made in different places, at different times, and for different reasons begin to speak to one another. The result is a portrait of the collector that no individual artwork could provide.
