I began obsessing about art as a young child.  I’d trace every cartoon character, draw every object in the house and remember every painting my parent dragged me to see.  It was the 70s and Soho was a rundown hood with filthy streets, strange people and GALLERIES.  I had been born in the City and moved to the beach by the age of 5.  Close by, but not the City.  My parents loved the quiet and the waves and yet longed for the action and grit of Manhattan.  I ate up every trip through the tunnel or over the bridge into Gotham like a regular kid ate iced cream; literally lapped it up.

I was a smart kid, good in school, multi-talented.  Played classical piano, acted, sang, danced, skied, played tennis and little league, loved the beach…but most of all loved to draw.  In high school my mother found the only painting class around with a bunch of old ladies doing still lives.  I painted portraits from advertisements.  My father carved stone and I was fascinated.  So much so that he let me sand and polish every piece.  We lived on the water and had a dock that he could carve on and just sweep the chips into the water.  Life was amazing.  I didn’t suffer enough; in fact I didn’t suffer at all.  I think that’s why I opted to pursue regular college and go to law school and just “do” art on the side.

At Emory University, I was a fraternity bro.  But the kind of bro who’d do a portrait of a fraternity brother and blow people’s minds.  The kind of fraternity bro who worked in the campus museum and the only serious art gallery in Atlanta. 

Art was they only thing I ever felt I HAD to be around . . . HAD to do. 

While attending law school I worked as a volunteer at the Whitney in the public education department doing research to help train the docents. That got me an unrestricted pass to the museum.  I literally watched them hang the David Park show that totally changed my life.  I also took painting and stone carving (with a famous Ab/Ex pack leader, Philip Pavia) at the New School.  I had zero free time, but I couldn’t help myself.  Art was they only thing I ever felt I HAD to be around . . . HAD to do.  I ran the arts law society at school with a friend who went into music.  I was an editor on an arts journal and wrote a dissertation about the use of the image of currency in fine art.  There weren’t many art lawyers at the time and I couldn’t find a job in that sphere.

I found my way as a lawyer, opting to use my thespian talents doing trial work and staying connected to fine art by hanging with and representing artists and then a few smaller galleries.  Later I joined the NY City Bar Association’s Art Law Committee and started attending seminars every year.  I also joined a group of painters in 1992 in a shared studio situation that still exists today.  Not too many shows went by at MOMA or Galerie St. Etienne that I missed.  I was passionate about the work of Egon Shiele and unlikely picks like Chaim Soutine and Cy Twombly .  I understood pathos more than any other quality.  That translated into an automatic respect for Abstract Expressionism and all that followed.  Any work that memorialized a feeling felt good to me.  Didn’t matter whether it was anger, hatred, love, empathy;  I could read it in the gesture.  I had a natural eye for quality.  I could see good composition, balance of forms, colors, shapes.  I knew what was good.

My parents collected art on a small scale.  So did my uncle – but much more seriously. He focused on early 20th Century works.  Hopper, Wyeth and the like. . . but also had works  by DeKooning and Gorky.  I loved talking with him about art.  He hung is own drawings in his ophthalmology office and I critiqued them every time I went to see him.  We had a pretty special bond.

Everything I absorbed informed my own art practice; it developed my 6th sense for discerning A from B works; it rounded me out and prepared me to be an advisor and a dealer myself

I got married at a young age to my perfect match.  Sadly, we had a storybook life until our third, and severely disabled, child was born.  It threw our whole lives into mayhem.  I would have loved to join the junior board at MOMA or the Whitney, but all of our spare money went to caring for our family.  Luckily, I found my way into the fabulous Inner Space group at Artists Space.  I didn’t know then, as a kid in his early 30s, who I was surrounded by and how connected they were to the “art world”.  Dealers, gallerists, curators, collectors, museum board members, artists . . . everyone was like me.  Art was it for them.  I began to learn about the different professional roles and capacities that existed in the professional art world.   I began to pay close attention to the art fairs, watched every auction, read all of the important publications - all still as a sideline.  Everything I absorbed informed my own art practice; it developed my 6th sense for discerning A from B works; it rounded me out and prepared me to be an advisor and a dealer myself, which came later.

After our third child passed away at the age of 71/2 years old and after we grieved the loss, I had a new lease on life in some respects.  I was freed of the notion that a person had to stick with the first profession he/she had devoted “so much time” to.  I knew I wanted to be in the art world and still couldn’t figure out how to do it.  I thought seriously about going to auctioneering school and working for a major auction house, but I didn’t want to do it as a lawyer. That, and I had grown too used to autonomy to work for anyone else.  I began using my familiarity with the fair and gallery circuit to start my own collection.  Everyone in my own circles knew me as the art guy.  A new family moved to town (Montclair NJ at that time) and the mom was a former critic/curator/gallerist from Paris with a PhD in art history.  By 2012 we had decided to form an art advisory partnership.  The “decision” was a real launch into a new realm.  The beginning of me being where I belong.

Things got off to a nice start.  Art Platform LA and Pacific Standard Time coincided and we threw a party for the Board at Danny Devito’s house.  Performance art, live sculpture. It was quirky and fun and really just right.  We weren’t trying to woo Barry Diller, we just wanted to announce our arrival.  We began taking clients around to fairs and galleries to help them build their collections and even just decorate.  I loved every minute of it.  Having to look at and see everything was more fun than work.  Opportunities to work on authentication, title and insurance issues made use of my legal acumen and experience. I began to know the important art lawyers and got to know the reputations of the dealers.  I started doing business with people on a regular basis.  My circle grew.  People trusted me.  Even with big decisions they seemed to feel comfortable knowing I had background in three realms – the law gave me an understanding of how to govern transactions and resolve disputes; the art-making gave me a deep appreciation for and knowledge of materials; the participation in the art world on a regular basis and my connections to people and institutions gave me street cred.  This thing was real.

Other dealers and advisors started to offer me works being deaccessioned or traded privately.  I started to move works.  Then sellers somehow started to find me.  It was all by word of mouth.  I bought and sold Chagall, Indiana, Nitche, Salle, Schwitters, Wesley, Twombly, Calder, Fontana.  Each transaction provided an opportunity to delve into the work at hand and it’s place in art history and in the artist’s oeuvre.  The art world is endless.  So much to know.