There is a particular warmth that only an old painting brings into a room. Not the warmth of a color, though that helps, but the sense that something in the space has already lived a life before it arrived in yours. Vintage artwork carries its own weather. You can feel the hand that made it and, faintly, all the walls it hung on before this one.
Most people assume collecting art belongs to someone else. Someone with a gallerist on speed dial, an art history degree, and a budget with no ceiling. I promise you it does not. The best collections I know were not assembled by experts. They were assembled by people who followed their eye, bought slowly, and were never embarrassed by what they loved. Here is where to begin.
