There's no one secret to making all the right acquisitions, but for CULTURED's 2024 Young Collectors, passion is the driving force behind their collections.

Whether it's their personal connection to a piece or a recurring theme that dictates their direction, these art patrons have all found a method in the madness. From New York to Los Angeles, and everywhere in between, we’ve gathered a curated list of insights from some of the year's top changemakers.

1. Let Your Home's Color Palette Guide You

"I know most of the artists I collect and I love their work, but I also love their stories and their processes … I'm definitely attracted to light, pastel, happy colors, and artists I can relate to. I have to see a work in person to fall in love with it." – Abby Smidt, New York

2. Envision How the Piece Will Evolve Over Time

“[In New Mexico, where we're opening a foundation, we're commissioning objects] that will live in the massive open space in perpetuity, engaging with the geography over a very long time, hopefully well beyond us.” – Jen Rubio, New York

3. Get To Know the Creatives Behind the Work That Resonates

“I acquire pieces that resonate with me personally, both on an emotional and visual level … establishing a personal connection with artists adds a deeper layer of intimacy to the collection.” – Patrick Finnegan, New York

4. Select Work That Captures Who and Where You Are

 “I choose art that makes me feel a certain way, that is reflective of the work I do. [I'm fascinated by] how art represents a moment in time.” – Lacey Tisch, New York and the Hamptons

5. Make Art a Part of Your Everyday 

"I was born into art … My grandparents taught me that art is not separate from life. It is a way to enhance life through history and beauty—to continue finding new inspiration and modes of expression."- Samara Furlong, Detroit and New York 

6. Collect Only What You Can’t Live Without

"I believe in buying art you feel you can’t live without. I believe in the power of surrounding yourself with beauty. In my job, I am constantly pulling inspiration and references from all over. I love living in a space where I get that by walking in the door." – Noora Raj Brown, Los Angeles

“I was born into art,” says Samara Furlong. Growing up amidst her philanthropist grandparents’ collection—which wasn’t childproofed—Furlong’s early memories include playing on a Mark di Suvero swing, watching her grandfather, a real estate developer, play the trumpet in front of a Bob Thompson painting, and listening to her grandmother, a dancer, tell stories about the little girl who lived inside a Joseph Cornell box. 

This early exposure sparked Furlong’s belief in the importance of art and its role in our lives. For her, it’s less about the works (although she has plenty—by the likes of Lauren Quin, LaKela Brown, Jo Messer, Jonah Freeman, Nikita Gale, and Cynthia Talmadge, no less) and more about the relationships that such pieces foster. “When you spend time with artists, their work takes on a different meaning,” Furlong says. 

Furlong was living in New York when the pandemic hit, and returned to the Detroit area, where she grew up, during lockdown. The founder of Voyeur Ventures—an advisory, curatorial, and experiential service—quickly established herself as a fixture in the art scene, joining the Museum Committee at Cranbrook Art Museum and the Friends of Modern and Contemporary Art board at the Detroit Institute of Arts. She also began to assemble a strong lineup of work by local artists, including Sara Nickleson, Shaina Kasztelan, Paula Schubatis, James Collins, Suzy Poling, and Reeha Lim. 
 
The collector’s passion for art and its ability to deepen the bonds of community was the driving force behind launching her nonprofit residency, Buffalo Prescott. The space, originally a Swedish tool shop on the east side of Detroit, soft-launched in May with five resident artists and a slate of programming (talks, workshops, crits) in the works. 

“Everyone thinks that when you have a building full of artist studios there are lots of conversations about the art, but there needs to be infrastructure for that,” Furlong explains. Every artist who participates in the residency will be asked to teach workshops. Fundraisers will be pancake breakfasts for the whole family rather than black-tie galas.

Of course, the tendency to view art as a family affair is innate for Furlong. She recently commissioned the Detroit-based designer Chris Schanck to create a custom table for her art-filled living room, which doubles as her 2-year-old daughter’s playroom. “My grandparents taught me that art is not separate from life,” Furlong says. “It is a way to enhance life through history and beauty—to continue finding new inspiration and modes of expression.”

For more from the 2024 Young Collectors list, read conversations with Daniel English, Gwen Tilghman, and Jen Rubio.

Art collecting is, above all, an act of faith. It requires faith in the vision of an individual artist, faith in the enduring value of living with art, and faith in the collector’s ability to preserve their acquisitions for posterity. The 10 individuals on CULTURED’s seventh annual Young Collectors list show us what comes after.

Whether they are the first in their family to collect or part of a long line of patrons, these art lovers are committed to supporting and growing alongside artists of their generation. They are pushing museums to offer a more expansive, engaging, and truer view of the art world—and pushing themselves to remain continuously open to new discoveries.

Jen Rubio, Aspen and New York
Abby Smidt, New York
Gwen Tilghman, New York
Noora Raj Brown, Los Angeles
Chelsea Mehra, New York and Washington, DC
Daniel English, New York and Arlington, VA
Andy Gao and Peter Wei, New York
Lacey Tisch, New York and the Hamptons
Samara Furlong, Detroit
Patrick Finnegan, New York

New York collectors Andy Gao and Peter Wei shudder at the mere mention of art storage. “We want to look at everything!” Gao exclaims. The couple recently traded their Tribeca apartment for new digs in Hudson Yards. The neighborhood’s main draw? More wall space. “The third bedroom is our viewing room,” Wei chimes in.

In less than five years, the couple has assembled a star-studded collection with works by such sought-after names as Loie Hollowell, Yoshitomo Nara, and Les Lalanne. A Tracey Emin painting, Holding Myself, 2023, hangs in their bedroom. A colorful Huang Yuxing canvas anchors the living room.

In many ways, collecting and real estate go hand in hand for the pair. As agents and owners of Home Ambassadors, a boutique real estate brokerage based in New York, they have stared down their fair share of bare white walls. “Years ago, I had a client who wanted help decorating her apartment in Tribeca,” Wei recalls. He suggested Costa Rican artist Federico Herrero, whose work he’d learned about from a friend. The client acquired a work—and, not so long after, so did Gao and Wei.

That first purchase led to many more. These days, “we’re always buying,” confesses Gao. Recent acquisitions include the work of Sahara Longe, Ellen Antico, Hilda Palafox, Holly Hendry, Mark Yang, and Julia Jo. In a few short years, art has very literally reshaped their lives. “We go to so many fairs that we’ve even been mistaken for advisors,” Gao continues.

As their collection grows, the pair expects their approach to patronage to expand as well. Recently, they joined the Brooklyn Museum’s Contemporary Art Committee; a foundation may also be on the horizon. For the time being, however, their home remains their most influential platform. “We host a lot of events for friends in the industry,” Gao says. “Sometimes our real estate clients will see art in our apartment, and then decide they want a work by the same artist.”

Every acquisition is a conversation. “There is no veto,” Wei notes. Works by women and artists of the Asian diaspora have emerged at the heart of their collection. “Artists who were previously underrepresented in the art world are a major theme,” Wei says. With every fair and museum show, the couple gets more confident in their shared eye. “We only want our first-choice works now,” Gao concludes. “Already, we’re running out of space again.”

For more from the 2024 Young Collectors list, read conversations with Daniel English, Noora Raj Brown, and Jen Rubio.

For Los Angeles–born, New York–based collector Abby Smidt, art’s purpose is to inspire new generations. Perhaps that’s because her own connection took hold as an elementary school student, when she won a national competition that landed her abstract, Paul Klee–inspired work-on-paper in the Smithsonian. “It’s still hanging in my parents’ house,” she shares. 

Following her undergraduate studies in contemporary art history at the University of Pennsylvania, Smidt moved to New York, where she worked at Sotheby’s and Artsy before starting her master’s in art business at the Sotheby’s Institute, which she’s currently completing.

Though she grew up surrounded by art, her own collecting began about three years ago and picked up speed after a studio visit with LA painter Gwen O’Neil. “Her work kicked off my interest in visiting artists’ studios and getting to know the artists,” says Smidt. “I know most of the artists I collect and I love their work, but I also love their stories and their processes. Gwen was one of the first I really connected with.” 

Since then, Smidt has acquired works by Grace Carney, who had her first New York solo show at PPOW earlier this year; Brice Guilbert, whose large-scale canvas has pride-of-place in Smidt’s NYC apartment; as well as Nicolas Shake, Lily Stockman, Angela Heisch, and Ed Ruscha. “I’m definitely attracted to light, pastel, happy colors, and artists I can relate to,” says Smidt. “I have to see a work in person to fall in love with it.”

Smidt interned at LACMA during high school, and is now on a young collectors committee there. She also sits on the Young Collectors Council at the Guggenheim and holds a special admiration for museum directors. “They help shape the city and bring everyone together,” she says.

In terms of the contribution she wants to make to the art world, Smidt is clear: “It’s so important to get young people to go to museums around the world and in the cities where they live. I would love to be involved in furthering that.” 

For more from the 2024 Young Collectors list, read conversations with Patrick Finnegan, Noora Raj Brown, and Jen Rubio

“Art is meant to be shared, not coveted,” says Chelsea Mehra. Recently, the young collector and founder of venture capital firm RUCA Capital has taken that sentiment further than most—in 2023, she established the RUCA Foundation, an arts organization and private museum.

Mehra, who grew up just outside of Washington, DC, chose historic Georgetown to house the fledgling institution, which showcases works from her expansive contemporary collection and will soon be made accessible to the public. These days, as the foundation’s executive director, she spearheads programming efforts and the collection’s curation. 

Strolling through Mehra’s Art Deco apartment overlooking New York’s Central Park, one finds works by Robert Longo, Issy Wood, and Ed Ruscha. An Anna Weyant hangs in the 30-year-old’s dining room. She tells me, offhandedly, that she won it in a bet with friends at the Armory Show. “My focus has always been to support today’s most compelling living artists,” she says. “I prefer to know that my patronage is directly impacting an artist during their lifetime.” 

Although her tastes are firmly situated in the present, the collector—who sits on MoMA’s Young Patrons Council and is also a patron of the National Gallery of Art, Whitney Museum, and LACMA—took inspiration for the RUCA Foundation from the great art patrons of the past, from the Medicis to the Fricks. “Collecting art is one of the oldest forms of storytelling,” she explains. “I want to build a world-class institutional collection that will exhibit and preserve some of the most important masterworks of our time.”

To date, the collection boasts works by heavyweights like Cecily Brown and Katherine Bernhardt. The latter painting—acquired from the legendary collection of Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz, role models of Mehra’s—is a favorite. But Mehra understands that building a world-class collection can’t be rushed. “It can take months, sometimes years, to truly understand an artist’s practice,” she notes. “I am extremely disciplined about acquiring pieces that fit my vision.” 

Mehra hopes that the RUCA Foundation’s impact will extend beyond contemporary art. “I was raised with the idea of sangha, which in Sanskrit refers to a culture held intact by a like-minded community,” she says. “I feel a responsibility, as a steward of many cultural assets, to try and tell the story of humanity.” 

For more from the 2024 Young Collectors list, read conversations with Daniel English, Noora Raj Brown, and Andy Gao and Peter Wei.

Daniel English loves John Giorno. Not only does the 43-year-old collector make nightly calls to his very own Dial-A-Poem, which rests atop a Jerome Byron plinth, he also has a Giorno idiom tattooed on his left inner bicep (“Space Forgets You”). “I don’t know what he meant by it, but to me the idea is empowering. You can leave a space and it forgets you, so you don’t have to take it too seriously,” English says. “But also—if you don’t do something to make an impact, space will forget you.” 

Today, English—who was raised outside of Detroit and is based between New York and Arlington, Virginia—moves through the art world’s insular spaces with ease. But he didn’t discover his love for contemporary art until he read Gerhard Richter’s The Daily Practice of Painting in college—a light bulb moment he remembers well.

“I have a journal entry from college where I wrote about how enamored I was with art because it helped broaden my perspective and see the world differently. I found that powerful,” he recalls. It took a few years (during which he worked for several tech start-ups and founded his own investment firm) before art called to him in earnest. 

“As someone who didn’t study art history or grow up in a family that collected art, it was very intimidating,” says English of his early forays into collecting two years ago. But a sharp eye, honed during his years in real estate investing, as well as the guidance of veteran advisor Rick Cappellazzo, have enabled him to amass a collection that includes works by Lynne Mapp Drexler, Karyn Lyons, Wendy Park, Hayley Tompkins, Jane Dickson, Titus McBeath, and Henry Swanson. He is also preparing to serve as a founding member of the Met’s newly minted Vanguard Council, which he says “will provide support for innovative, visionary, and cutting-edge projects” at the museum.

The appointment is part of a larger effort, undertaken with help from Cappellazzo, to make the practice of collecting feel more accessible. “At first, I was terrified of galleries and I didn’t understand how to navigate it all,” he says. “But [in my work,] it’s not like I just see a building and then go buy it. There’s a whole infrastructure of advisors, specialists, researchers—I realized I could tap into those same resources in the art world.” 

For more from the 2024 Young Collectors list, read conversations with Patrick Finnegan, Noora Raj Brown, and Jen Rubio.

Gwen Tilghman is descended from one of 19th-century Europe’s most revered art-collecting families. The Rothschild banking dynasty’s vast holdings—which, over the years, have boasted historic works of Renaissance art, priceless jewelry, regal furnishings, and rare manuscripts—may have given rise to the infamous eponymous term le goût Rothschild, but this young American collector isn’t resting on those gilded laurels. 

“I’m more of a minimalist,” she muses from her office at Volt Global, the New York-based investment fund she founded last year. Tilghman prefers to keep an uncluttered, white-walled home that lets the works in her collection do the talking. “I tend to gravitate toward bright colors and abstract shapes,” she says, “and I’m a big fan of nature.”

So far on her collecting journey, Tilghman has scooped up color-dripping, eye-popping works by rising artists Markus Amm, Alejandra Seeber, Patricia Treib, Ryan Wallace, and Zak Kitnick—plus “three Daniel Fuller photographs showing abstracted ocean views and sunsets that almost look like Rothkos.” Recently, she bought a textured canvas by Marina Rheingantz, donating another piece by the Brazilian artist to the ICA Miami (where her uncle, on the Rothschild side, sits on the Donors Circle). But it’s her first purchase, a painting by Sam Moyer, with its undulating fields of blue, that she considers the centerpiece of her collection. “It reminds me of a Loïc Raguénès wave painting,” she says, “with a dash of Cy Twombly."

If there’s any family influence behind Tilghman’s collecting philosophy, it comes from her mother—also on the Rothschild side—who instilled in her children a reverence for contemporary art. “She was a lifelong collector—contemporary names versus the classics,” Tilghman says. Her mother's vast collection featured works by George Condo, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Andy Warhol, as well as “two beautiful Francesco Clemente paintings.” Most of those works went to auction following her mother’s death in 2020, but Tilghman kept a few as cherished mementos, including a Warhol print of General George Custer and an expressionistic flower painting by Donald Baechler.

Tilghman’s gallery circuit includes White Cube, Sean Kelly Gallery, Clearing, and, when she’s in London, Kate MacGarry. She leans on a few well-positioned friends to help her edge out the competition when necessary. Some of those insiders hail from her college days at Yale—but while her friends were students in the university’s elite art program, Tilghman pursued engineering and economics.

“Those are underrepresented fields for women,” she says. “I remember teaching girls to code and helping them to expand their horizons … Women empowering women, especially in finance—I’m one of the few woman investors who has started a fund—has been a central part of my life.” She pauses to reflect. “It’s something I try to cultivate in my art collection, too. I find myself seeking out art by women that speak to me.”

For more from the 2024 Young Collectors list, read conversations with Daniel English, Noora Raj Brown, and Jen Rubio.

It’s a rare moment in a collector’s journey when, at long last, a collection comes full circle. That’s the position that Jen Rubio—co-founder and CEO of the buzzy luggage brand Away—and her husband Stewart Butterfield—co-founder and, until recently, CEO of Slack—found themselves in recently, when they purchased a large-scale work from Pop art titan Ed Ruscha. One of Rubio’s first acquisitions, given to her by Butterfield, was a Ruscha lithograph. “Coming full circle like this feels so incredible, so meaningful,” she coos.

Collecting with meaning could be Rubio’s motto. Since she first immersed herself in the art world, her collection has ballooned in size and scope—boasting contemporary stars like Simone Leigh, Joan Mitchell, Mickalene Thomas, Marina Perez Simão, Claire Tabouret, and Salman Toor. 

The couple have doubled down on this commitment by selecting the New Mexico desert as the location for their future foundation, a vast sculpture park. It’s still early days, but the duo intends to commission objects that will “live in the massive open space in perpetuity, engaging with the geography over a very long time, hopefully well beyond us,” says Rubio.

Rubio has found another way to approach art with a sense of purpose. The youngest member of the Whitney Museum board, Rubio took the step—as one of her first actions following her appointment—of endowing an associate curator position focused on works by Latinx artists. She also spearheaded the Free Friday Nights initiative, enabling the museum to open its doors each week free of charge. In the year since the initiative’s inception, she says, the average visitor age has dropped. “They’re a more diverse group, too. My goal is to make the institution a vital part of growing up in New York. The barrier to entry is not just the cost—it’s making people feel welcome.”

For more from the 2024 Young Collectors list, read conversations with Daniel English, Noora Raj Brown, and Gwen Tilghman.

Many children grow up with family snapshots on their walls. Lacey Tisch grew up looking at a series of four portraits of her mother by none other than Andy Warhol. 

The daughter of Susan Tisch Allen and Andrew Tisch, the co-chairman of the board at Loews Corporation, Lacey has collecting in her blood. But it took encounters with two very different works of art—Paul Downs’s gleaming Swarovski-adorned mixed-media work Chanel Number 5 and a print of Ansel Adams’s black-and-white photograph Snow Oak Silence—to inspire her to build a collection of her own. 

Tisch is the co-founder of wellness company Sage + Sound, an Upper East Side destination offering lymphatic massages, non-toxic nail care, classes, and more. Her dedication to health and well-being dovetails seamlessly with her collecting philosophy. The entrepreneur has always been drawn “to things that make me feel a lightness,” she says. “I choose art that makes me feel a certain way, that is reflective of the work I do.” 

Tisch sees the pieces she has acquired over the years as the embodiment of her personal evolution. With an approach to collecting that’s both intuitive and joyful, she remains fascinated by “how art represents a moment in time.” She is speaking with me from her New York residence, one of the two homes for a collection that toys with texture, pattern, reflection, and transparency. (Tisch splits her time between Manhattan and the Hamptons.)

Here, the Los Angeles–based artist Mungo Thomson’s Person of the Year, a mirrored composition based on the famous Time magazine cover, shares space with an atmospheric photograph by the American artist James Welling of Philip Johnson’s iconic Glass House. Other treasures include a commissioned work from the Italian artist Paola Pivi’s “Pearls” series and the dot-filled Alchimie 390 by Argentinian artist Julio Le Parc.

Tisch describes her East End abode, where she keeps work by Daniel Arsham and a collaborative chair by the Campana Brothers and KAWS, as “more fun and kitschy … it’s where we feel more laid-back.” Travel adds another dimension to Tisch’s collection. Everywhere she visits, from small islands to major cities, she buys something to commemorate the trip.

Her most recent acquisition was L’incubo di Kubrick by Damiano Spelta from Rossana Orlandi’s eponymous gallery in Milan. Up next are excursions to Singapore, the Maldives, and Dublin, which will likely lead to even more intriguing encounters that find their way into Tisch’s constellation of a collection. 

For more from the 2024 Young Collectors list, read conversations with Daniel English, Noora Raj Brown, and Jen Rubio.

The logic behind ​​Noora Raj Brown’s collection is simple. “The older you get, the more you discover your own taste,” she says. “I believe in buying art you feel you can’t live without.”  

Raj Brown and her husband, Ryan Brown, began collecting nearly a decade ago while living in New York’s West Village. “The first piece we bought together was a Matt Bilfield. My husband picked it—it's very Pop, colorful, and playful,” says the Goop executive vice president. While Brown favors the bright and bold, Raj Brown opts for a minimalist aesthetic. “The first work I bought personally was a Christopher Wool—a beautiful artist proof,” she recalls. 

A lot has changed since these early acquisitions—the pair traded New York for Los Angeles and had their first child. Nevertheless, their collection, which now lines the walls of a sun-filled Pacific Palisades abode, remains a celebration of distinctive visions. “It’s easy for people who know us to guess who chose what,” Raj Brown says with a laugh.  

These interwoven visual languages are a testament to a collecting philosophy that reflects both individual tastes and the passing of time. One of Raj Brown’s favorite works is a Stanley Whitney that hangs in her daughter’s nursery. “I loved the idea of starting her collection early,” she muses. “Even though Whitney’s work has such deep meaning, it felt like something a child could attach to. It’s a piece that will take on different meanings the older she gets.”  

Beyond Goop, family life, and collecting, Raj Brown is a devoted philanthropist. She’s a founder of the voter engagement organization I Am a Voter, and a board member of the Hammer Museum. Raj Brown is particularly active with Hammer Projects, which supports emerging artists. “An incredible collector once explained to me the importance of meeting artists that you grow with,” she recalls. A custom mural by artist Caroline Lizarraga in the family’s dining room underscores these relationships. “Caroline and I are in the same life stage with young kids. I love that as her career grows, I can support her in different ways,” she says.  

Above all, collecting serves as a continuous source of inspiration. “I believe in the power of surrounding yourself with beauty,” Raj Brown concludes. “In my job, I am constantly pulling inspiration and references from all over. I love living in a space where I get that by walking in the door.”

For more from the 2024 Young Collectors list, read conversations with Daniel English, Andy Gao and Peter Wei, and Jen Rubio.