The Human Condition: The Stephen and Pamela Hootkin Collection Sept. 2014 | Page 48
you go there,” she said. When we got up to Kukuli’s
RP: In spite of the rigorous demands of your
studio in the Bronx there was no heat, just plastic
professions both of you clearly made time to pursue
over the windows. She only had small space heaters
your art interests. Most people are more casual
scattered around. She not only worked there but lived
acquiring one piece here, another one there. In your
there as well. It was another fascinating visit. She was
case you approached art collecting with an intensity
a child prodigy. She was a painter who had come
that you both shared.
to the United States from Peru. Here she turned her
PH: I think that came out of a very real emotional
attention to ceramics—ceramics imbued with deep
response to the work and the medium. It wasn’t that
social commentary. Her parents were well-established
we had ever planned to be collectors. We just did
professionals in their respective fields. But here was
it. As Stephen said, we may have been guided by
this opportunity for us to engage with this unbelievably
gallery owners early on, but subsequently, whatever
intelligent, creative individual and yet you looked
we bought was because the work resonated with us
around and realized that basically you were in a derelict
emotionally. In those days, the 1980s through the
squatters’ building in the middle of the South Bronx.
1990s and into the early 2000s, we were collecting
SH: We were willing to go anywhere when we were
a lot. It was a key part of our lives. I give Stephen
excited about an artist and were interested in their work.
credit because he would go through art magazines,
journals, and auction catalogs. If he saw a piece
PH: One last story is about visiting Peter Gourfain. We
met Peter at an exhibition of his work and said we would
love to visit him. He agreed and gave us his address
in Williamsburg. He had moved there before it got to
be such a high-rent district. We found him living in
an old row house above the garage, which he heated
with a wood stove. He did all his work in the garage.
he would do the research and pursue it: Who is
the artist? Where do they live and work? He would
call the artist and say, “We just saw this piece and
are really interested in your work. Can you send us
images; are you represented by a gallery?” Collecting
just became totally integrated into our lives.
He showed us the carved wooden ox yoke telling the
SH: This is a common theme when you talk about
tragic story of Michael Stewart that is now in the Chazen
collectors. You become totally obsessive about doing
collection (Michael Stewart, 1989). Peter was and is
it. We also followed that pattern. We became totally
very far left politically, however, as we talked to him he
obsessive about acquiring work that we loved. We
decided that we were the only capitalists he liked. He
would go to a gallery and the owners might make
saw through our business suits and recognized that we
a suggestion, but we were really confident in our
had a passion for art. We still joke about that to this day.
own vision.
A view of the Hootkins’ home in the Tribeca area of New York.
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