The Fisher Collection

"Wandering through the fourth and fifth floors, I kept thinking, what motivates wealthy collectors?" - Kenneth Caldwell

Kenneth Caldwell's remarkable blog, Design Faith, features his review of the first Fisher Collection exhibit at SFMOMA, the repository of some 1,100 works of art that Donald and Doris Fisher collected over the years. Caldwell's take on the Fishers is that they played it safe, but less so late in life. Donald Fisher died of cancer in the spring. Two days before he died, they agreed to loan their collection to SFMOMA for 100 years - like the Hong Kong lease, but renewable. The art adds heft to the museum's existing collections, Caldwell says, so it can document the period more thoroughly. He finds SFMOMA a better venue for it than the Presidio, where Fisher initially tried to build his own museum. The collection isn't singular or idiosyncratic enough (my words, not Caldwell's) to warrant a longer journey. It's a pleasure reading Design Faith. I hope Caldwell gets pleasure out of writing it, too. It reads like he does.