How To Collect Fine Art

For art lovers, there’s no more indulgent home away from home than Dallas’s Joule hotel. Slightly removed from the city’s Arts District, the entire hotel is decorated—down to the bathrooms—with a rotating installation of artworks from the private collection of Joule owner and billionaire oil tycoon, Tim Headington.

The hotel’s gallery-like experience begins across the street, where artist Tony Tasset’s three-story eyeball sculpture ogles visitors approaching the Joule, an amuse bouche for the main course that follows: hallways and individual bedrooms bedecked with pieces by Andy Warhol, Richard Phillips, Tony Cragg, Adam Fuss, and Tomory Dodge, among others. Here, John Runyon, the art adviser who curates the Joule’s exhibited works, clues HarpersBAZAAR.cominto the artists he has his eye on now; advising us how to start your own collection.

What do you look for when you make an acquisition?

First, interesting artists and compatibility with the evolving and thriving downtown Dallas Arts District. Second, longevity and works that resonate for decades, not months or years. Durability is also a factor. If a work is too delicate, it can’t work in a hotel environment.

Is there such a thing as thrifty art collecting? How would you advise people who are looking to collect on a budget?

There are plenty of solid galleries on New York’s Lower East Side and in Los Angeles, for instance, that are approachable, well priced, and respected. For example James Fuentes, Eleven R, and Karma in New York; Karma International and Overduin & Co in LA; or the tougher-to-navigate Phillips Auction Contemporary Day Sale, if you know what you’re doing.

Which up-and-coming artists are you most interested in?

Ryan Nord Kitchen, Hugh Scott Douglas, and Mathis Altmann.

Are there any artists you think are “underrated” right now?

Will Boone, Gunther Forg, Torey Thornton, and Sam Gilliam.

What pieces would you like to buy next?

Another Analia Saban work and perhaps a Torey Thornton painting.

What piece in someone else’s collection do you wish you could get your hands on?

A Robert Gober sculpture or a work from Warhol’s “Death & Disaster” series.

What was the first work you ever bought personally?

A Warhol self-portrait print from 1966.

What do you have installed in your home?

Works by Yayoi Kunama, Mark Grotjahn, Will Boone, Calvin Marcus, Analia Saban, Ryan Trecartin, Torey Thornton, and Karla Black.

How do you decide which pieces to exhibit in the Joule and when?

The Joule collection is curated to mirror the energy of the Dallas Central Business District and neighboring Arts District. That urban energy is captured in works like our copper sulfate-encrusted double engine block sculpture by Roger Hiorns, video piece by Leandro Erlich, and non-objective painting by Tomory Dodge. When I locate appropriate works for the hotel collection, and the hotel guests and ownership are excited about the acquisition, the stars align.

You used to have a gallery of your own and gave Richard Phillips his first painting show outside of New York. When and why did you transition to art advising?

After being in the gallery business for 10 years, I decided in 2000 to represent collectors navigating the growing art market jungle. Art fairs were proliferating, and auctions were growing in frequency. Since then, I haven’t had a gallery but rather my own private spaces at my home office. My personal collection represents a journey through two and a half decades of collecting and includes works I have either discovered through relationships with galleries or personal contact with artists themselves. I’ve also collected historical works by Fred Sandback, Donald Judd, and Ed Ruscha.