Tête-à-Tête with Art Deco Collector, Dr. Stephen Kelly
Q & A with Dr. Stephen Kelly
For over thirty years Dr. Stephen Kelly, a successful ophthalmologist with a Manhattan practice has been quietly assembling a collection of rare and important Art Deco furniture, fine art and design and filling his ca. 1915 landmark limestone and brick townhouse with these treasures. Last month, I paid a visit to the doctor at his upper east side gallery, which housed an impressive collection of fine art deco, and modern works of art.
Stephen Kelly, MD: Certainly the greatest one would be the Eileen Gray six panel screen. I think it’s really a wonderful piece. It’s a fine example of a great decorative art but it’s also a very important fine art. This piece came at a point in her career when she was changing from figurative to a more abstract, linear, geometric sort of work. This also was a very important point in the history of art. Paris was the center of decorative arts and fine art during that period. Eileen did all of her work in France. She was Irish, but was sort of adopted by the French. Her pieces are relatively rare and unique. Unlike Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, she didn’t create a lot of models.
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| Eileen Gray, six-panel screen, circa 1922-25 |
HEW: When did you begin collecting Art Deco and why did you choose this particular style?
SK: I started in 1982, and collected primarily because of the interior design concept that Geoffrey Bradfield and Jay Spectre came up with for my apartment. They had a modernistic art deco style of design for my home, and I liked the renovation. It was a kind of design that appealed to me and it grew as I started an art deco collection that compliment the interiors.
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| Photo credit: Josh Gaddy for the Wall Street Journal |
HEW: As a seasoned collector, what advice do you have for young collectors? Why should they start with art deco?
SK: The best advice is to collect something that you really love. It’s a mistake to collect things that you think you’re going to make money on. Whether that’s art deco or some other form of art. For me, I happen to think that art deco is a good area because it works well with contemporary art. There is such a big trend to contemporary art these days, and art deco furnishing works well with contemporary art, whereas a lot of the 19th century period English or French furniture doesn’t work so well with contemporary art. For young collectors who are interested in contemporary art, I think choosing art deco is a good way to start furnishing your apartment.
HEW: Tribal art also looks good with art deco.
SK: Yes, it does. I’m not a tribal art collector, but I really like to mix it with my art deco. Asian art is a good compliment to these pieces as well. Especially the Asian ceramic pieces.
HEW: What do you make of all the various art deco fairs that followed the 1925 art deco exhibition in Paris?
SK: After the great depression, most of these pieces became too difficult to sell, and the more modernist sort of design surfaced in the late 1930s. The war came and put a hold in the whole thing. So art deco went out of favor for a while. In the 1950s, it was completely out of favor. Then the interest started again in the 1970s. I recall that the Eileen Gray auction brought great interest in the market. That was one revival, and it revived even more in the 1980s which is when I started collecting. Since then, the interest hasn’t waned, and it’s been pretty consistently strong. And of course the Yves St. Laurent auction in Paris in 2009, gave the art deco movement a tremendous boost. The highlight of that auction was the Eileen Gray dragon chair which sold for $28 Million – the highest paid for a 20th-century piece of furniture. By the way, I visited the Eileen Gray exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in February. It’s a wonderful show where they go through the phases of her life: the furniture, the lacquer work, architecture, textiles and carpets. Even the photography. I loaned my Eileen Gray screen to the exhibition. The one that I purchased through the Steven Greenberg sale last year in December.
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| Stephen Kelly Photo credit: Josh Gaddy for the Wall Street Journal |
The Kelly Gallery is located at 154 East 71st Street (Between 3rd and Lexington Avenues), New York City. Hours of operation are: Monday through Friday from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Tel: 212.744.0004.
