How does someone decide what art to collect?

Think global, collect local? Collect global, encourage local?

However you approach the process, collecting is about COURAGE and ENCOURAGEMENT.

Art collecting is not about playing the market or following trends. It’s a collector's responsibility to discover works that belong in conversation, and bind them together in ways that no one else would have considered.

When you have the COURAGE to acquire a young (then unknown) artist, in that very act you ENCOURAGE that artist and support the local art community. You demonstrate a delicate respect for other collectors. You offer them a shared feeling, and maybe encourage them toward the point of acquisition, and especially toward experiencing the joy found in living with art.

Over seven decades, The Goodman Duffy Collection has gone through many iterations. It was founded with the works of Modern Masters like Giacometti, Klee, Leger, Matisse and Picasso, then evolved to be mostly influenced and informed by the local art community wherever we were. While living in San Francisco, we collected the work of young, Bay Area artists. We then mixed in Contemporary German and Austrian works, and later added the works of New Mexico artists. Moving to Chicago, we acquired the works of regional artists who captured incredible imagery and allegorical references. In Las Vegas, we continued acquiring what we loved and what moved us. Now in New Orleans, our most recent acquisition is a work by Robert Currie that we came upon at Arther Roger Gallery.

Looking over our collection, we see a traveling diary of our experiences:

San Francisco

• Diebenkorn
• Wiley
• Oliveira
• Thiebaud
• Conner
• Allan
• Hudson
• Benton

Hamburg

• Fetting
• Oehlen
• Schindler
• Tadeuz
• Hrdicka
• Bohatsch

Santa Fe

• Dominguez
• Marsh
• Kuykendall
• Graham
• Breuer
• Morales
• Jimenez
• Pierce
• Arends

Chicago

• Willenbrink
• Lucy
• Wells
• Linnenbrink
• Lefkowitz
• LeWitt
• Tuttle
• Barnes
• Gealt

Las Vegas

• Erik Beehn
• JW Caldwell
• Bradley Corman
• Favela/Von Bastiaans/Limbert
• Abigail Goldman
• James Hough
• Steve Hough
• Angela Kallus
• Wendy Kveck
• Brian Porray
• JK Russ
• David Ryan
• Aaron Sheppard
• Brent Sommerhauser
• Erin Stellmon
• RC Wonderly
• 3 Baaad Sheep

New Orleans

• Robert Currie

Whatever we acquire, we are guided by an intuitive assessment of what works with the rest of the collection, always driven by quality.

Some of the local artists we’ve collected have gone on to attain global recognition. Now we get the satisfaction of knowing others around the world feel drawn to their work as well. Though many of the works we’ve acquired have appreciated significantly, for us collecting isn't so much about investment potential. The point has always been to celebrate what the French call "l'art pour l’art," or art for art's sake. We take immense pleasure in appreciating wonderful works of art and in supporting the efforts of artists.

Most importantly, we cherish the experience of The DONATION. Nothing is more special than when we get to share special works of art with the public through a donation to the permanent collection of a museum.

We also can’t fail to mention the pleasure we’ve had of experiencing art with others along our journey, GREAT friends like Phyllis Wattis, Moo and Hunk Anderson, Eugene V, and Clare Thaw, Ruth Horowitch, Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman, Dennis Adrian, Richard Born, Heidi Gealt and James Rondeau. They have each added such wonderful illumination to our collecting. They had COURAGE, and with that, they too ENCOURAGED.

— The Goodman Duffy Collection