This article is taken from the May 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.
For most of history, collecting art has been a very personal activity. In recent years, with the squeeze on profits at auction houses and the concomitant rise in the value of some contemporary and modern art beloved by a small cadre of financiers, there has been a tendency to perceive the art market as an investment-grade arena. Judging by the prices asked by some art dealers, it is no surprise that some private collectors wanted in on the same profit margins.
Yet, for most participants, buying and collecting art is not about investment. It is about emotion and personality. It is also about fashion, but mostly it is about personal conviction and passion for the object and the sense of connection the purchaser feels for it.
As an art advisor I have been asked to value, research and assess the contents of many collections and on occasion have also had the privilege of discussing their genesis and evolution with their owners. Amongst them was Aso A. Tavitian, whose collection was auctioned in New York in February following his early death from cancer. I met him several times when working at Christie’s in the early 2000s, during the glory years of his buying and later when I visited him in New York.
He bought a beautiful English 18th century serpentine chest of drawers, which had belonged to a forebear of mine, James Thursby Pelham, so I felt a personal connection. He placed it in his bedroom. The cream of his collection was made up of superb quality English mahogany furniture, Italian bronzes and Old Master paintings, and 331 of the best paintings and pieces of sculpture were bequeathed to nearby Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, where Tavitian served as a trustee.
He was of Armenian descent and came to the US from Bulgaria with little. As Candace Beinecke put it, “Aso lived the American dream. He came to the US with nothing but intellect, tenacity and a commitment to quality and hard work.” He put himself through Columbia University by working as a New York taxi driver and later founded Syncsort, which became a successful software company. In 2004 he began collecting art.
His approach was to listen to advice and to learn and then to visit a renowned dealer or auction sale “resolved to buy something”. This was not retail therapy but a strategy. As a result, with his deep pockets and also by trusting advice and buying from reputable and experienced dealers and selected auctions, he built a superb art collection, which truly reflected his passions and interests and probably also his personality.
He was, by all accounts, a very generous and delightful man. Peter Holmes, one of his trusted advisors for English furniture, recalled being driven back to New York by Tavitian after he and his wife had been invited to stay at his home in the Berkshires. The experience of being driven through Manhattan by a former New York City taxi driver was apparently unforgettable.
Another friend remembered his generosity when, at the height of personal, very public difficulties, Tavitian called to ask him if he was available on a certain date in May. To his surprise, the invitation was for him and his wife to be his guests at the Met Gala — seating them either side of him at dinner, demonstrably supporting this friend through the depths of his troubles.
But it was when I carried out a simple financial analysis of the ten most expensive pieces of English furniture sold from his collection at Sotheby’s sales in February, that I appreciated his true conviction. That market has dropped significantly, and the prices demonstrated this: he had bought the best pieces at the height of the market which were now sold for half or sometimes a third of what he had paid for them at auction ten or 15 years previously. In discussing Tavitian and his collecting, Peter Holmes claimed, “he bought his furniture like he bought his wine — to be enjoyed.”
It struck me that he did not buy for investment or for profit; he bought for the pleasure of collecting and to own works which gave him and his friends pleasure. He delighted in sharing his collection with those who appreciated his efforts. There was a time when many actors in the art market were blessed with similar gifts and passions. These people could move the art market.
Thankfully, today there are still — just — players like Aso Tavitian, but only rarely does one come across such a deep-seated interest in and passion for art, humanity and philanthropy.
