If you are reading this letter, chances are you’ve already caught the collecting bug—or perhaps, like me, you were born ill with it. There are signs: a weakness for the eased edge of a handmade object, a tendency to linger over a painting after others have moved on, a quiet longing to know the lives that glint through old things.
If that’s you: welcome. You are among friends.
As I proposed in my 2023 book, The New Antiquarians: At Home with Young Collectors, the great pendulum of taste is swinging back in our direction. Unlike their Gen X forebears, Millennials and Gen Z are beginning to collect en masse, unburdened by the modernist certainties or minimalist overcorrections of previous eras, and drawn, atavistically, to the material culture of the pre-digital past. Many are connoisseurs in the making, becoming what my late friend Philip Hewat-Jaboor called “grown-up” collectors as time and means allow, and they join a loyal, spirited cohort of antiquarians who never lost the faith—this magazine’s devoted readership among them. After a quarter-century spent on the fringes of mainstream taste, antiques and historic art are rapidly reentering the zeitgeist. A collecting renaissance, I posit, is upon us.
The special issue of ANTIQUES you hold in your hands, cheekily dubbed the Collector’s Edition, celebrates this breakthrough.
Inside, you will hear from young collectors and curators in their own words as they consider the magic of the objects they love, the challenges our institutions face, and the possibilities, too, inherent in the emerging moment. Writing from a train en route to TEFAF Maastricht, the expansive Dutch art and antiques fair, gallerist Laura Kugel weighs in on these exciting possibilities. Nicholas Cullinan, recently appointed director of the British Museum, sounds an equally optimistic note. Have I drafted my friends into a conspiracy of optimism? Perhaps. But as I pointed out in a panel discussion at TEFAF with Laura (her train arrived in good time): we live on a floating ball of rock in outer space, and the condition of our existence is an endlessly exploding hydrogen bomb (that we call the Sun). Tiffany lamps can come back into fashion. And they are.
Of course, this is ANTIQUES, and if you have read this far, you will likely agree that fashion cycles can never be quite as interesting—even when they favor our affinities—as the ageless beauty and inherent meaning of material culture. That is why I drafted in seasoned collectors for not one but two stories on “Living with Antiques.” Behind every young collector is a mentor, or a whole cast of them, and these guiding spirits show us all what is—that word again—possible.
In my hometown of Florence, Alabama, a “house collector” honors local history, and her family’s story, while expanding our sense of what constitutes a collecting category. Far to her north, a Maine state employee demonstrates that, with fifty-five years and enough persistence, anyone can build an extraordinary collection—even if it’s one or two objects at a time.
Throughout the issue, you will encounter fresh perspectives that provide a roadmap to what our collective future will or could hold. From Soane Britain founder Lulu Lytle’s impassioned plea to preserve not just objects but craftsmanship itself, to the high-tech facilities of Madrid’s Factum Foundation, where the future of preservation is being invented right now, one 3D scan at a time, I hope a perusal leaves you feeling both positive and provoked. Think young antiquarians regard period rooms as dusty and historically distant? Think again, says Sarah Archer in Field Notes.
Suppose that house museums are behind the times? Not so fast, say two visionary museum directors from Houston, where I was recently bowled over on a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts. On another recent trip, to London, I stayed at a new boutique hotel, At Sloane, which demonstrates that historic design and modern luxury make the best bedfellows. Turn the page and see for yourself; contemporary craftsmanship, technology, and high design can serve the cause of antiquarianism—not challenge it.
Along the way, you will find a little more music and poetry than usual, including a report on the salterio, a largely forgotten instrument played by young artist Marc Armitano Domingo, and a poem written for this issue by my friend Richie Hofmann. (There’s another as well—one by Ogden Nash that’s sure to bring a smile to your face: “I met a traveler from an antique show / His pockets empty, but his eyes aglow.”) You will find more art, too, including two special covers (Collect them all!), which I commissioned from my creative collaborators Studio Samuel and Elizabeth Goodspeed. At this point, you will not be surprised to learn that the covers were inspired by this magazine’s past issues—Elizabeth’s from the 1940s and ’50s, Studio Samuel’s from the late ’60s and early ’70s—as was the heading of this Guest Editor’s Letter, which nods to the 1930s.
History is full of surprises, and the future of the past is bright. Enjoy!
Michael Diaz-Griffith
@michaeldiazgriffith
