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| Feature |
The Inner Circles
Suzanne McGee
11/01/2004
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When fledgling collectors Davis and Carol Noble bought a painting by Gerhard
Richter more than a decade ago, they gasped at the $140,000 price tag. Today,
they have matured into established art-world patrons, and have assembled such a
notable compilation that museums now seek them out. Last year, the Nobles sealed
a pact with the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MFA) by making a fractional gift of
two Richter works, including the one that launched their collecting career,
which is now worth approximately $500,000.
 | MEMBERS OF collectors circles receive special viewings of works. Artist Fred
Tomaselli’s art
on display at the James Cohan Gallery in
New York. |
Davis, a retired bond specialist,
and Carol, an accountant, live near Boston in the north shore town of
Marblehead, Mass. But more than proximity, the catalyst for their generosity to
the MFA was the arrival of Cheryl Brutvan in 1998 as the museum’s Beal Curator
of Contemporary Art, a high-profile position named in honor of three major
donors, Robert L., Enid L. and Bruce A. Beal. Before Brutvan joined the MFA, the
museum’s contemporary collection was meager relative to the overall
institution’s history and reputation. Worse still, the museum was falling short
in its ability to reach out to Boston’s contemporary art collectors, who, it
hoped, would comprise its next generation of trustees and donors.
From the
start, Brutvan’s aim was to show the city’s large community of affluent
collectors that the institution’s commitment to contemporary art was firm, and
in strong hands. Drawing on her 15 years of experience at the Albright-Knox Art
Gallery in Buffalo, a strong regional museum, Brutvan sought to rejuvenate the
MFA’s visiting committee—a group formed to bring curators and trustees together
with newer collectors and potential patrons, known at other institutions as a
collectors circle.
Brutvan set about wooing collectors who remained
unaffiliated with the museum, including the Nobles, who met her through their
dealer. She invited the Nobles and other new collectors to private viewings,
dinners with cutting-edge artists and educational events. “It was all part of
demonstrating our commitment to them and to the field of contemporary art,” the
curator explains.
| Looking at a vast amount of the art that is being produced today
can make you feel insignificant, silly, stupid, inadequate. A good
curator can translate or interpret what it is that you’re looking at. |
Brutvan’s efforts have paid off. The number of collectors
serving on the visiting committee has doubled over the last five years. Its 43
members have been instrumental in creating seven new acquisition funds to boost
the institution’s relatively slim holdings of contemporary art.
“The idea is
that this group’s members become our strongest advocates,” Brutvan explains.
“They are collectors who are learning about the art; they are seasoned
collectors who will support major acquisitions for us.”
For their part, the
Nobles found that joining the visiting committee has enhanced both their social
life and their clout as collectors. “We had sort of slugged it out on our own in
the art world, for better or worse, and developed relationships with a couple of
dealers, but being part of the visiting committee took our knowledge to new
levels,” Davis notes.
“It has introduced us to other collectors, a whole new
circle of friends involved in this world, and allowed us to travel with them to
art fairs in New York and Miami, to encounter new artists,” Carol adds.
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