Lewis and Sue Nerman’s Hallbrook home could easily be mistaken for a contemporary art museum. Every wall displays major works by leading names from Pop to post-modernism: James Rosenquist, Donald Judd, Cindy Sherman, Malcolm Morley, Chuck Close, Martin Puryear, Richard Tuttle, Kara Walker. And the closer one moves to the present, the more global the collection becomes, with works by British sculptor Antony Gormley, the Germans Martin Kippenberger and Katharina Fritsch, Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone and Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui. The dining room displays one of El Anatsui’s shimmering bottle-top tapestries, similar to the piece that hangs in the Bloch Building at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
During a recent tour, Lewis Nerman filled in the background about some of his purchases, reminiscing about the dealers, dinners and trips to art fairs that sparked his interest in specific works. And he was thrilled to report that the new Steve Jobs movie shows the January 1983 TIME magazine cover featuring a detail of the Nerman family’s George Segal installation showing two men seated in front of computers.
When did you start collecting?
It all started in the 1970s with my parents, Jerry and Margaret Nerman. Dad is 96; Mom is 93. Their influence changed my life; I aspire to build a collection of the same caliber that they have built.
We began by collecting French and Russian bronzes. We had them everywhere, and then my Mom said, “We need to buy something for the walls,” and that’s when we moved into collecting contemporary work. At first it was ULAE (Universal Limited Art Editions) prints from Myra Morgan Gallery, who really gave us the education to go forward. Now I receive more than 100 emails on art every day.
You went on to build your own collection.
A painting from Frank Stella’s “Concentric Square” series was the first major thing I ever bought. It was 1979 and I bought it from Ronnie Greenberg’s gallery in St. Louis. One of the latest things I purchased was Robert Gober’s Ear with Axe (2012) from Matthew Marks Gallery at the Art Basel fair in Switzerland. I like walking around fairs, but I don’t go primarily to buy. I go to see and learn what an artist can teach me.
Of all the artists out there, Mark Tansey is one of the smartest. I bought his Reader (1990), which was reproduced on the cover of the book Legacies of Paul de Man. de Man was a giant of deconstruction and a friend of Jacques Derrida. Tansey has been inspired by the work of both men, and after I bought Reader, I received a complicated note from the artist.
The Richard Prince painting sounds a lighter note.
I was up at the Chicago Art Fair and was invited to dinner with Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn (daughter of St. Louis art dealer Ronald Greenberg and the owner of Salon 94 art gallery in New York), and Madeleine Grynsztejn, (director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago). I went to dinner with no intention of buying anything, but at one point, I said I’d love a Richard Prince joke painting. I’d been looking for one for ten years.
Next thing I know, Jeanne pulls up a picture of one on her cell phone and Madeleine says, “That’s really good. If you don’t get it, I’ll get it for the museum.”
It’s all text and it reads: “What’s the difference between kinky and erotic? With kinky you use the whole chicken.”
I thought it was the best joke painting I’ve ever seen. I bought it in five seconds.
Your collection features a number of works with text. Tell me about the Glenn Ligon piece over the fireplace.
It’s one of his coal dust paintings, created from abstracted stenciled letters. While they’re still wet, Ligon sprinkles coal dust on them. The text is from Stranger in the Village (1955) by James Baldwin. Sue and I were out in Los Angeles because we lent a Richard Diebenkorn painting to one of the Getty’s “Pacific Standard Time” exhibits, and we saw Shaun Regen from Regen Projects gallery, who said come by. She showed me this Ligon painting, which had been on reserve for a client in Mexico City. He decided not to go forward, so I bought it.
Martin Kippenberger is a favorite of yours?
I have two. The Pop-influenced painting, Kasperel III (1993), is in all the books. I‘ve had it for more than a decade, and recently I had an opportunity to get a lamp. It was offered to me by Galerie Gisela Capitain in Cologne — the same gallery that sold me the painting — which handled the artist’s estate following his death in 1997. He was only 44.
Kippenberger was a wild and crazy guy who lived life to the fullest. He stumbled out of bars and used a lamppost to hold himself up. He really received no major recognition until he died; the Museum of Modern Art in New York did a major retrospective in 2009.
He only did six lamps in his life, and they’re all different, although each has a red light. This one operates as a frame around a painting.
Who did the orange octopus displayed in the vitrine?
That’s by German artist Katharina Fritsch. She is the octopus, and the little man in the diver suit is her boyfriend and she has her tentacles around him. I was at the Art Basel Miami fair and this was in the Matthew Marks Gallery booth. The day after I bought it, it was featured in an article citing highlights of the fair.
I also bought this work by L.A. artist Paul Sietsema from Matthew Marks. The paintbrush looks like it’s adhered to the canvas, but it’s a painted image. What Sietsema does is to go to garage sales and buy old canvases. He turns them inside out and paints on the back.
When I got it home, I noticed that the side of the canvas is ripped. I took a cell phone photo and called Matthew and said, “I think the canvas got ripped.” He said, “I’ll check with the artist.” Sietsema confirmed that the rip was part of the artwork!
Every vista here culminates in an artwork. What about that piece by the stairway?
That’s a mask by Ugo Rondinone, showing one mouth biting down on another. We also have a Rondinone lightbulb. It’s an earlier work, made of wax and weighing 150 pounds. He did 24 of them for the 24 hours of the day. Each one is unique.
I recognize that large Asad Faulwell painting on the lower level from a one-person show at JCCC’s Nerman Museum, which bears your family’s name.
He’s the youngest artist in the collection, born in the U.S. to Iranian parents. It’s from his “Women of Algiers” series about the female freedom fighters persecuted and killed in their fight to liberate Algeria from the French. Those dots you see on the surface were done with an eye dropper. Another notable work is a 6 by 6 foot canvas by Yigal Ozeri, an Israeli photorealist. I bought it from the Byron Cohen Gallery in Kansas City.
I know you frequently give tours of your collection to various groups and you’ve also given and lent works to area museums, including that huge Magdalena Jetalova Table (1988) sculpture that your family gave to the Nelson.
The Anatsui tapestry and the Nick Cave Soundsuit were on view for a while at the Nerman Museum. My Dad has always lived by the three S’s: We search for the art. We secure the art. We share the art.
Photos by Jim Barcus
In February, the Kansas City Art Institute announced a gift from Jerry and Margaret Nerman and Lewis and Sue Nerman, to permanently endow the position of the school’s president as part of a 2:1 matching challenge grant by an anonymous donor, via the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation.
