Interview with collector Curtis Finch, Jr.
Joe and I have been friends with art collectors Jackye and Curtis Finch, Jr. for over 15 years. But we have never actually asked Curtis about how he became interested in collecting and why. This interview is my 200th for the blog! So, I thought interviewing Curtis would be perfect. They are both such wonderful people – I want the readers to know more about them! (Profile photo of Curtis next to sculpture by Robyn Horn and self-portrait by Roy De Forest)
AAS: Curtis, where did you grow up?
CF: My father worked for the Magnolia Petroleum Company (later became Mobil Oil) in Dallas and was transferred to Little Rock in 1933 two months before I was born. I attended Little Rock schools graduating from Little Rock Senior High in 1951. I graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1955 and then served in the US Army in Germany. Returning to Little Rock in 1957 I went to work in a family business.
AAS: When did you think you first became interested in art?
CF: I cannot draw a straight line with a ruler and have absolutely no talent for making art. I did take an art appreciation course in college and learned to tell a Cézanne from a Renoir and a Monet from a Manet. My mother took college students to Europe during the 50’s and 60’s, and I went on one of these two-month trips in 1953. During my army service I traveled extensively and went to quite a few museums then.
But I guess it wasn’t really until I became an adult. Around 1981, I became a trustee at the Arkansas Arts Center, now the AMFA. I had been a board member of the Arkansas Symphony before that. I’ve always liked symphony music and hearing it live. I used to go to the symphony where there were more people in the orchestra than in the audience. Anyway, due to the guidance of Townsend Wolfe, director, and Bob Hickman, an active board member, I became very interested in the AAC and its mission. Townsend had developed a lot of public interest in the AAC, and it became the most prominent cultural institution in Little Rock. There were a lot of business people who wanted to support it and get involved.
Townsend decided soon after he came to Little Rock to head the AAC in 1968 that a focus was needed for the museum’s art collection he was beginning to assemble. He decided that the focus would be drawings, which by his definition was any original, unique work on paper. I thought this was a genius idea and though many museums had some works on paper none really focused on contemporary works on paper. To encourage people in Little Rock, and all of Arkansas, to buy and collect works on paper, Townsend organized a collector’s show which featured 200 pieces from about 25 to 30 New York commercial galleries and offered them for sale. No one had done that before and this made it possible for potential collectors to be exposed to art by nationally known artists that they could actually buy.
Townsend also started a Collectors Group which met about 5 or 6 times a year. He invited gallery owners from major cities to show and talk about their offerings. He also arranged visits to local collectors’ homes, and always planned a trip to a major city to visit collectors, galleries, and museums. This approach was continued by AAC director Todd Herman. I remember traveling to DC with the Collectors Group in 2013 with you and Joe, Todd, Brian Lang, now Chief Curator of the AMFA and Ann Wagner, then Curator of Drawings, as well as others. As I remember, we all came back with a few wonderful pieces. These types of activities and special events for collectors sponsored by the museum helped a good many people in Little Rock develop wonderful collections, not only drawings but art that appealed to each of their individual tastes.
There are many wonderful collections in Little Rock and around Arkansas by private collectors that few know about. Phil, you and Joe have one of the finest collections in Little Rock. The vivid colors in your collection are especially appealing. Your focus on Sheila Cotton’s work shows a dedication to a very fine artist.
AAS: When did you first become interested in collecting?
CF: I retired in 1985, and Jackye and I traveled extensively. Going with Townsend on various trips with the collector’s group and with him when he picked out drawings for the Collectors Group show taught me how to talk to gallery owners whether they be in New York, Los Angeles, London, or Budapest. I learned to be comfortable being specific about my interests.
Of course, I would seek Townsend’s counsel about my collecting and Thom Hall, the long time AAC registrar and collection manager, was a big help to me also. Thom is an artist himself and there are several of Thom’s works in my collection.
AAS: Do you remember the first work you acquired as a collector?
CF: My first purchase at a Collectors Show was an abstract drawing by Heide Fasnacht. Then I became interested in figurative work and especially “faces”.
AAS: You are known nationally as a collector of self-portraits. What is it about self-portraits that fascinates you?
CF: Townsend presented a show, About Face, when the new galleries at the AAC opened in about 2001, featuring the “faces” we had collected during the preceding 20 years. About that time, I decided to focus my collection on artists’ self-portraits. Artists have been making self-portraits forever. A self-portrait provides a ready-made model for an artist from which to work. I was really interested in seeing how differently artists depicted themselves. I have slowed down on collecting but have added a few in recent years that seemed to help complete the self-portrait collection. These now number about 180 or more.
AAS: I suspect many of the readers of the blog will never forget seeing Face to Face, your traveling exhibition of self-portraits, which was at the Arkansas Arts Center in 2013. Tell me about that exhibition and how it came about.
CF: Face to Face was the second exhibition of our self-portraits, about 113. I approached Todd Herman to develop the exhibition and I got Brad Cushman, the gallery director and art professor at UALR at the time to curate the Face to Face exhibition. Brad came up with the idea of putting two portraits face-to-face in the catalog which had some relationship whether it be a similar pose, color, etc. It was a brilliant idea, and the catalog with the text by Brad and the editing by Jackye and Thom Hall made it a really terrific work. This also traveled to several other venues including Naples, Florida and Auburn, Alabama.
“Curtis is drawn to eccentric and unique artist self-portraits. Over the last few years, he will tell me that he is done collecting, but it is hard to believe him, because following those pronouncements a month or two later he will send me images of new pieces he has purchased. He is a man of few words, but his passion for art and collecting endures.” – Brad Cushman
AAS: While you often happen upon an artist’s self-portrait, you sometimes commission a self-portrait. What do you look for in a self-portrait and what do you ask an artist to produce when you commission a self-portrait?
CF: When I see an artist’s work I like, I might commission him/her to do a self-portrait. Some are just not interested in doing a self-portrait. If interested, I would tell them that I really don’t want a “head and shoulders” but to use their imagination and come up with something which appealed to their creative senses and maybe told a story about them.
AAS: What are some of the other self-portraits in your collection that you find especially interesting?
CF: Well, there are many. One of the first I acquired was by Warren Criswell and I now have several of his. He is quite a character. The story behind the self-portrait is important. Self-portraits by Arkansas artists George Dombek, Robin Tucker, and Jerry Phillips are personal and creative examples. Ethan Murrow is a favorite; I have two of his self-portraits. I saw the work of Alex Queral in a gallery in Naples. He does portraits sculpted from telephone books, which are amazing, so I asked the gallery to ask him to do a self-portrait. It is one of our favorites.
AAS: I know you have a special association with the National Portrait Gallery in DC and several of the self-portraits in your collection have been finalists in the National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. That must be extremely gratifying and exciting.
CF: About 15 years ago the National Portrait Gallery started having a competition for the “best” in recent portraiture. The artist must enter the competition which can be any medium: work on paper, oil on canvas, photograph, etc. There were over 4,000 entries when Gaela Erwin entered her Baptismal from our collection about 13 years ago. It won one of the top prizes.
During the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, Jackye and I became acquainted with Wendy Wick Reeves, the drawing curator there. The NPG has a vast collection of drawings and has published many books about them. Wendy came to Little Rock to visit our Arkansas Arts Center and Stephens Inc. arranged to fly her to visit Crystal Bridges which was about to open.
Last year I suggested to Tim Lowly to enter his self-portrait Temma with her Father from our collection. It is a very poignant drawing of him and his daughter and was one of the 50 or so selected to be in the exhibition.
Baptism by Gaela Erwin
Temma with her Father, Tim Lowly
AAS: It has been a pleasure for Joe and me to assist every few years in rehanging the works on display in your home. While rotating the works does give you and Jackye a chance to enjoy the collection, I understand that works on paper need a period out of direct light. Would you talk about the proper way to care for works on paper?
CF: We do change the 60 or so self-portraits hanging in our house every few years. Works on paper do not like direct sunlight. Though the drawings in our home are not subject to direct sunlight we rotate those exhibited about every two years. We have them hanging in our house because we like them – at least I do. But Jackye jokes about not liking all those eyes looking at her.
“It seems as though I have known Curtis and Jackye since I arrived in Little Rock many years ago. One thing that I have always appreciated about their collecting is how much they care about getting to know the artists whose work they collect. They have a way of finding impressive artists and challenging them to produce a self-portrait, giving them the leeway to create a work that expresses their unique personality. They began collecting my work several years ago, and although they have very little space for big sculpture, they always manage to find a place for whatever they fall in love with—the sign of a true collector—or maybe just one that is obsessed.” – Robyn Horn
AAS: Your collection includes many self-portraits from Arkansas artists. How do you think the Arkansas art scene has changed over the years?
CF: There are many fine artists living in Arkansas. They get exposure at various exhibitions such as the Delta Exhibition at the AMFA, Mid-South Watercolorists, Small Works on Paper exhibition and many others, including your blog.
I will say the impact that the Windgate Foundation has had on art in Arkansas is probably the single most important showcase for Arkansas artists. The leadership by Robyn Horn in developing the arts throughout the state is mind boggling. We have the work of many Arkansas artists in our collection and display them proudly in our home.
Some of the Arkansas artists in the self-portrait collection of Jackye and Curtis Finch, Jr.
AAS: You have a wonderful self-portrait of Fayetteville artist Ray Allen Parker who created an amazing collection of large portraits of literary figures, and you are taking it on the road to ensure it can be viewed especially by college students. Tell me about the collection and your plans for it.
Ray Allen Parker
CF: I saw the Kyle Boswell exhibition of Ray Parker’s paintings of 15 poets who had an impact on Ray when he was a student. They are magnificent! As we left the gallery, I said to Jackye that these need to be kept as one collection and exhibited to school students. Well, before I got home, I decided to buy all of them and seek a venue for the exhibition. I got Ann Wagner, formerly drawings curator at the National Portrait Gallery and the AAC, to do research on the collection and to seek a venue for its exhibition.
During this process Ann was hired as the director of the Bradbury Museum at Arkansas State in Jonesboro. Ann thought that Ray Parker’s collection would be a great fit at ASU, and so we decided to give the collection to the university. The response from faculty, students, and administrators has been very positive.
AAS: I know you and Jackye don’t talk about it, but the two of you have been visible and often invisible supporters of artists and art institutions for decades. Why is supporting the arts so important to the two of you?
CF: As I said, I am not an artist and cannot create art in any fashion. But art has been an important part of my life for a long time especially the past 70 years or so. Collecting can become an obsession, as you know. Most people do not know that more people go to museums every year than to football games. Supporting art is a worthwhile endeavor.
AAS: Do you have any advice for collectors?
CF: Buy what you like and can afford. Not a Rembrandt just because, not a name artist just because – not every piece by a famous artist will be good. You are going to live with it so don’t worry about what someone else thinks of your collection. One thing I have done is to live within my means and not go overboard with purchases I could not afford.
Have a plan for disposing of the collection so others can enjoy it. We have already given a large number, about 175, of all types of drawings to the AAC, now AMFA, over the past 15 years or so. It is our intention to give the rest of the collection to the AMFA, or at least the ones they want. It has been a great ride!!
