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Collecting Case Studies: Lawrence Rinder

Lawrence Rinder is a San Francisco–based collector and dean of graduate studies at California College of the Arts. He was formerly the curator of contemporary art at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

art collecting oliver halsman rosenberg prayer manifestation 2005

How long have you been collecting?

I’ve been collecting drawings for about 20 years. I started in the early 1980s, when I was living in New York City and working in the education department at the Museum of Modern Art. I didn’t have much money, and so I had a policy of not spending more than $200 on an artwork.

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Mary Belknap Golden Mountain, 2005 colored pencil on paper

What was the first artwork you actively collected?

The first drawing I can remember buying is a Sherrie Levine watercolor titled After Morandi. At the time, I was interested in the conceptual aspect of the work (it’s an appropriation of a Morandi drawing), but also its physical beauty.

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John McKenzie, Untitled, 2005 marker and collage on paper

When did you realize that you were creating a drawing collection?

At a certain point I realized I was buying more drawings than works in other media. I didn’t start out with that as a conscious intent. I think it happened initially because of my spending limit, and drawings do tend to be cheaper than works in other media. But once I realized that I was going in that direction, I thought it would be fun to focus. And I’d developed an eye for drawing and a taste for it. At a certain point I noticed another tendency in my collecting, which was toward abstraction and, specifically, intricate pattern. That has led me in some interesting directions, from Tantric drawings made in Rajasthan to bark-cloth drawings from the Ituri forest in central Africa. I’m not sure why I continue to collect. I certainly have no more space for more art in my house! But I’m still buying, and still trying to stay within the $200 budget. At this point, I often buy drawings because I think they need to be part of the family of works I already have.

What advice would you give new collectors?

You don’t have to be rich to collect! The bottom line is, just collect what you like.

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