RICHARD and RUTH SHACK
MIAMI
CONTEMPORARY ART
A biography of the Shacks reads like a history of Miami’s burgeoning art scene. Richard Shack was a leader of the Center for Contemporary Art for 15 years, and then of the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami that emerged from it in 1996 (the main MOCA gallery is named after him). Then he chaired ArtCenter/South Florida, a cluster of open artists’ studios, which now anchors the Lincoln Road Arts District (and which named its exhibition space the Richard Shack Gallery). Ruth and Richard have been part of Art Basel Miami Beach from its inception, and when 9/11 prevented international dealers from attending the planned launch in 2001, they were among a few couples who opened their home collections for the occasion. They’ve been doing that at every Art Basel Miami Beach since. The Shacks live in 5,000 square feet of soaring duplex space filled with the art of today, which is what has always attracted them. Because they started collecting avidly 50 years ago, “today” began with Larry Donovan and Robert Rauschenberg— and they now own more than 600 pieces. Much of their collection devolves from a sweet anecdote: As newlyweds, they exchanged only gifts of art, and none was to cost more than $100 (yes, the first Rauschenberg). “We feel lucky to be involved with ArtCenter,” Richard says. “These exciting young artists get exposure and often find dealers to represent them.” Ruth, a former Dade County Commissioner and President of the Dade Community Foundation who was in the forefront of the development of the Art-in-Public- Places program, says, “Richard and I are partial to dealers because they provide artists with visibility, credibility and access.

CAROLE and JOSEPH SHANIS
PHILADELPHIA
ENGLISH OBJETS D’ART
When Carole and Joseph Shanis married, each came with substantial, wildly diverse collections. “My collections were influenced by my mother,” says Carole. “I started with boxes—wooden tea caddies— and grew from there: snuff boxes, nutmeg graters, card cases, glass jewelry boxes. Then there were the perfume bottles, Oriental mugs—oh, and English furniture.” Joe’s collections included “anything to do with St. George on a horse killing a dragon,” mechanical banks, stained glass and American furniture. They managed to put this all together and continue to acquire items such as match strikers, card cases, rose medallion porcelain and more tea caddies. “My mother hooked me on accessories,” says Carole, who was a decorator for 37 years. She is the president of the Philadelphia Art Alliance, which describes itself as “the oldest multidisciplinary arts center in the United States.” Carole serves on the Chairman’s Council of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and has been honored with an Individual Leadership Award by the Philadelphia Arts and Business Council.

JON and MARY SHIRLEY
BELLEVUE, WASH.
CONTEMPORARY ART
Asoaring 39-foot-tall abstract red eagle by Alexander Calder is perched in a spectacular new seaside sculpture park in Seattle, which opened in early 2007. The sculpture, which seems likely to become the park’s identifying image, is a reminder of the generosity of Jon and Mary Shirley, who gave a $5 million leadership gift for the new Olympic Sculpture Park (part of the expanding Seattle Art Museum), and another $20 million to endow it—and then purchased the giant Calder for it. A retired president of Microsoft, Jon is chairman of SAM’s board, a position he’s held since 2000, and is co-chairman of the museum’s $180 million capital campaign. Over the years the Shirleys have made major gifts to the museum, including establishing the Jon and Mary Shirley Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. The couple’s collection of 20th-century American art includes works by de Kooning, Pollock, Rothko and Close, among many others. (When the Shirleys funded a major Chuck Close retrospective, the artist told the Seattle Times that the couple owns more of his paintings than any other collector.)

JERRY I. SPEYER
NEW YORK CITY
CONTEMPORARY ART
Happily for New York residents and visitors, real estate mogul Jerry Speyer is a great advocate of public art. As the president and CEO of Tishman Speyer, the real estate firm that owns Rockefeller Center, he assures the city a continuous supply of interesting art. Thousands of people come to see the changing oversized installations which sit atop the famed Rockefeller Center skating rink—works that range from Jonathan Borofsky’s “Walking To the Sky” to Jeff Koons’ huge, verdant “Puppy.” Tishman Speyer maintains a collection of works by important contemporary artists, including Frank Stella, Julian Schnabel and Takashi Murakami, which is displayed in and around buildings it leases to other corporations. As vice chairman of MoMA and a board member since 1982, Speyer was deeply involved in the museum’s recent expansion and is a generous underwriter of innumerable exhibitions. Private in his personal life, Speyer and his wife, Katherine G. Farley, have a townhouse filled with a vast collection of contemporary art—and a catalog for the convenience of guests. Speyer is said to have never sold a work of art in 40 years of collecting.

TERRY and MARGARET STENT
ATLANTA
AMERICAN ART
Collectors of 19th- and 20th-century American art, Terry and Margaret Stent are model museum supporters: unstinting benefactors, energetic fundraisers and deeply loyal. In 2006, Stent was named the country’s Outstanding Volunteer Fund-raiser by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. As chairman of the renewed High Museum in Atlanta, he led its $130-million expansion campaign, generating multi-million dollar gifts and providing capital support himself, including acquisition funds for American art and a gift to endow the Margaret and Terry Stent Curator of American Art. In recognition, the High named one of the new Renzo Piano–designed buildings the Stent Family Wing. “In addition to being a focused and dedicated collector of American art, Terry has served brilliantly as the board chair for the past six years,” says Michael Shapiro, the High’s director. “Terry understands the passions of collectors and curators, but also has a disciplined and businesslike side.” Shapiro adds, “One of the highlights of 2006 was our Andrew Wyeth retrospective, which included Terry and Margaret’s painting, ‘The Quaker.’ Terry and I had a memorable visit with the Wyeths in Maine, and after the show the Wyeths gave the High a very finished study for Terry’s painting.” Stent also is a past chairman and benefactor of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Although art is in his DNA (his great-grandfather was the de Young who founded the eponymous San Francisco Museum), Stent became a naval fighter pilot after Yale, received an MBA from Harvard and spent most of his life as a pilot for Delta Airlines.

JEWEL STERN
MIAMI
MODERNIST SILVER
Jewel Stern bought an old Reed & Barton hors d’oeuvres tray with a 1930s modern design by Belle Kogan, her first piece of American silver, in 1986. “My background isn’t simply silver but Modernism— the art, architecture and design from the ’20s and ’30s,” says the Miami-based scholar and curator. But from that tray a silver collection grew. Today it includes more than 400 industrially produced pieces made in America from 1925 to 2000, with examples from every major manufacturer. The Jewel Stern American Silver Collection is considered the most important assemblage of 20th-century American silver extant. It was acquired by the Dallas Museum of Art, which just mounted a traveling exhibition, “Modernism in American Silver: 20th-century Design” that Stern co-curated. She received the prestigious Smith Award for her contribution to the accompanying hardcover book of the same name. The exhibition opened at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery, is on view at the Wolfsonian in Miami Beach until March 25, and then travels to the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis. Stern, who continues to collect silver, says she is “still looking for the ones I haven’t found yet,” adding that since her collection was acquired, she has given the museum another 50 to 60 pieces and promised gifts.

CLAY STEWART
CHARLESTON, S.C.
ORIENTAL RUGS AND TEXTILES
A$15 rug changed his life. Clay Stewart was a college student in San Antonio, scrapping around for furnishings. After finding a couch, he sought a hearth rug, which he got from an elderly Oriental rug dealer in a part cash, part labor deal—and was hooked. “I spent the next eight years apprenticed to [the dealer], Mr. Sahakian,” he says. “He taught me to take every rug apart and put it back together again, literally, for every tribe going back 200 years. He taught me how to reweave holes, to repair rugs in a thousand different ways using a needle and thread.” Stewart’s two collections of 19th-century rugs and woven textiles from central Asia and Afghanistan now comprise 48 Baluchis and 23 Turkmen. The Turkmen were exhibited at the Gallery of Fine Art, College of Textiles, North Carolina State University in 2006. The Baluchis were on view earlier at the College of Charleston. Stewart curated and wrote the exhibition texts for both shows, which was no small task as the Turkmen show had a 7,000-word glossary. Stewart has owned shops and has consulted for Sotheby’s and the Getty, but these days he spends most of his time on research. “I support my collections by private consulting,” he says.