Our Five Favourite Celebrities and their Art Collections
June 26, 2012
We all have our favourite celebrities – heart-throb movie stars, sexy divas, soulful singers, rocking athletes.
Now there’s another reason to love them: many of them also collect art.
Visual Voice Collections has picked five top celebrities with impressive art collections.
STEVE MARTIN
This wild and crazy guy is actually a serious art collector. Steve Martin’s knowledge of the art market is extensive, he even wrote a a novel titled An Object of Beauty which fictionalizes the life of a New York art dealer. Martin’s comprehensive art collection was first exhibited in 2001 in Las Vegas and encompasses a wide range of periods, including works by Georges Seurat and Pablo Picasso, though the majority of artists he collects are American, such as Edward Hopper, Eric Fischl, and Willem de Kooning.
ANGELINA JOLIE AND BRAD PITT
No, they don’t just collect children. This Hollywood power couple are frequent visitors at art fairs, where they hang out with their art collector friends and make major purchases. The British graffiti artists Banksy and Bambi are among their favourites, as well as the German artist Neo Rauch.
LADY GAGA
Unlike Steve Martin, whose academic art collection is a stark contrast to his flamboyant on-screen personality, Lady Gaga’s collection is a perfect reflection of her alter-ego. Or maybe, the inspiration thereof. The outlandish diva favours artists Leigh Bowery and Francesco Vezzoli, both performance artist and avant-garde fashion icons. Gaga and Vezzoli even occasionally collaborate, most recently at a fundraiser for the LA MOCA.
DAVID BOWIE
Though he is known as a god in the pantheon of rock music, David Bowie has been very active in the visual arts. He is an amateur painter, art collector, and he even runs his own on-line art gallery bowieart.com. Bowie started collecting early in life and owns a couple of Tintorettos as well as a Rubens, but also collects modern masters such as Graham Sutherland and Frank Auerbach who is an influence on Bowie’s own artworks.
OPRAH WINFREY
The grand dame of daytime television is a patron of the arts, especially art with an African heritage. Winfrey collects artists such as Thomas Hart Benton, Harry Roseland, Faith Ringgold, and Elizabeth Catlett. The Oprah Winfrey Foundation also makes major purchases and recently donated 62 artworks from 13 countries to the New York Museum of African Art.
