Palmieri says she can think of almost no other collectors who approach art in the way the Shlesingers do, citing their tendency to take risks and the fact that they bought works because they loved them and wanted to live with them, not as part of an investment portfolio.
an institution committed to teaching. The Georgia Museum of Art’s strong relationships with departments all over campus, and with faculty and students who frequently use its collec- tions, were big points in its favor. That the museum is part of John’s alma mater also made it a natural choice. The Shlesing- ers also made a significant pledge over the next five years to support the costs associated with their gift of art, concrete evidence of their understanding of the needs of our museum. Together, the Shlesingers have purchased works of art for or donated works to many museums, including the High Muse- um of Art, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (Ridgefield, Connecticut) and the Tate Americas Foundation. They began collecting art in 1997, when they bought an early spin paint- ing by Damien Hirst that is included in the gift and will be on display at the museum this summer in “Neo-Abstraction: Celebrating a Gift of Contemporary Art from John and Sara Shlesinger,” a focused exhibition that gives a small sample of the donation. Through careful study and by developing rela- tionships with artists and dealers, the Shlesingers continued to build credibility and grow their impressive collection. At first, they focused their collecting efforts on the Young British Art- ists (YBAs), a group that included Hirst as well as Gary Hume and Gavin Turk, whose works they also acquired. Contem- porary art was easier to come by for relatively new collectors than Old Masters, for example, and they were passionate about helping to build artists’ careers. They continue to collect, both works by established artists like Glenn Ligon and emerg- ing artists, including Atlanta’s Shanequa Gay, and ARTNews named them to its “Top 200 Collectors” list in October. Gabriela Palmieri, now an independent art consultant who works with the Shlesingers, developed a relationship with the couple while serving as chair of contemporary art of the Americas at Sotheby’s. Palmieri says she can think of almost no other collectors who approach art in the way the Shlesing- ers do, citing their tendency to take risks and the fact that they bought works because they loved them and wanted to live with them, not as part of an investment portfolio. They have cutting-edge taste and have collected across a wide variety of media. Palmieri talks with enthusiasm about the entire family’s intellectual curiosity, which she sees as fueling the collection and this gift. Palmieri also points out that the Shlesingers’ tendency to collect works from across an artist’s lifetime will allow UGA students to see the trajectories of different careers. She calls
that unusual even among people who collect contemporary work and believes that the desire to educate and instruct was a driving factor in this gift. For example, she points to that purchase of Hirst’s spin painting the year it was made. Created using a mechanism that rotates the canvas and leaving much to the power of chance, these works were a new approach to painting, almost removing the hand of the artist. William U. Eiland, the museum’s director, said, “This gift from Sara and John Shlesinger to the Georgia Museum of Art is certainly a quantitative change for our collection, but, most important, it is a qualitative one. It gives us the means not only to teach and to exhibit the cutting-edge art of the past 25 years, but also allows us to help students and our general audiences to find, to understand and to step beyond that edge. Overnight, due to their generosity, we are able to extend our collection planning and expand our ability to teach in an age when visual-arts education has become more and more necessary.” John Shlesinger received his bachelor’s degree from Southern Methodist University and a master’s of business administra- tion from UGA in 1983. He is a vice chairman in the advisory and transaction services occupier practice of CBRE, a commer- cial real estate and investment services group, as well as the leader of CBRE’s Atlanta Consulting Group, which provides strategic planning, financial structuring and transaction man- agement services to occupier clients. With his business partner of more than 30 years, Sam Holmes, Shlesinger has complet- ed over 2,200 sales and lease transactions across 88 million square feet, and has been involved in 8,600 acres of land transactions, all with a total value of more than $15 billion. Shlesinger serves on the boards of the Atlanta History Center and Oakland Cemetery. He was previously a member of UGA’s Board of Visitors. Sara Shlesinger, a long-time arts fundraiser, has a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Brandeis University. She is a board member at Emory University’s Michael C. Carlos Museum, where she and John have donated work to the collection and funded bus transportation for Title 1 schools in the Emo- ry area. She served on the selection committee for the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale and on the Modern Women’s Fund Committee of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and is the incoming advisory board co-chair for Art 21, a nonprof- it organization dedicated to inspiring a more creative world through the works and words of contemporary artists.
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