Josef Mikl, The good collector

published in:

Vom guten Bildersammler (Breicha auf Wunsch nicht genannt) 

Standpünktlich

Katalog Akademie der bildenden Künste Meisterschule 

About the good collector of pictures
„Certainly there are many picture collections in this world.
Only few are of quality.
Why is this the case?
Countless artists work, there is no shortage.
Is the reason the attitude?
Does the educated salesman unlike the many others who only want to cover their walls -
victims of the frame-industry – does this educated man not have better insights than others?
Does he not travel, then he does not know New York, Frankfurt, London, Copenhagen – does he not visit galleries, museums?
He does, but what he does  - diffused, it does not result in a proper collection.
He does not have the gift of a good collector. (…)
The good collector does not hurry, his talent forces him to be calm, to engage with the pictures of the young, of the old, of the unknown, of the dead, with pictures that were not seized by any fashion  journal an by any critic.
Nowadays he finds them under the conitnually growing muckheap of art.“