Hoarding

I took a few art history classes in college and I loved them. My modern art class was perhaps my favorite class I took in college. My dad gently nudged me away from art history into something more practical, like math. Which was fine. I loved math, too.

Paul Allen died in 2018, and left behind a most impressive art collection. It was all put on the auction block last week at Christie's. The collection sold for more than $1.6 billion.

So the guy is dead. And he had great taste in art, or he had enough money that he could afford great taste in art.

Before the art was sold, it was put on display. Thousands of people lined up to see it. I never would thought that people would go see art that is up for sale, but they did because they might not ever get a chance to see these masterpieces again. After the sale, the art will likely go to private homes instead of to museums.

I wish Allen would have donated the art to a museum, even if he made his own museum. He already did with MoPop, a museum that celebrates pop culture. He could have given the art to the SAM, or multiple museums. The Met takes art collections from single donors, as it did from Robert Lehman, scion of Lehman Brothers.

I have another question -- is it really great art if no one sees it? The paintings aren't famous--they are the opposite: they are private. No one knows the names of these paintings. They won't be studied in art history classes, which I think is tragic. I can understand that people want to own masterpieces, and I don't want to discourage that. Yet, I think there is a point where some art should be on public display and shared with community.