To collect is human, one might say with apologies to British poet Alexander Pope (“To err is human; to forgive, divine”); and there probably are very few people who as child or adult haven’t collected something at some point — coins, stamps, baseball cards, dolls, books, recorded music, etc.
But while the impulse may be human in general, specific collections usually tell something about individual collectors’ lives, personalities, and passions.
Take, for example, the following members of Milwaukee’s Jewish community. They are some of the collectors whose collections are featured in the Jewish Museum Milwaukee’s current exhibit “Revealed: Private Collections from the Jewish Community,” which runs through Feb. 28.
Museum staff members video-recorded interviews with these collectors, and visitors to the exhibit can see these and thereby meet the collectors via smart phone. Here are some highlights from these interviews.
Some collections begin from happenstance encounters. For example, after a bad day in the early 1980s, Joan Barnett and her model-railroad-enthusiast husband Sheldon went for a recreational drive.
They ended up in Sussex, ate at the Peppermint Junction Ice Cream Parlor — which inhabited what had been the Chicago-Northwestern Railroad depot — and Joan took a photograph of Sheldon in front of that building.
This launched a six-year quest to visit and take pictures of as many as they could of the remaining railroad depots in Wisconsin. “Some of the depots were in total disrepair,” she said. “Many others were turned into restaurants, homes, museums, art galleries. Very few depots were used for their actual purpose.”
They found more than 200 of the 400 estimated depots, and Joan photographed Sheldon in front of each one. “We enjoyed it very much,” she said.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, “a lot of businesses were looking for a competitive edge,” said Richard Yuspeh. “So they hired industrial designers to make their pieces more acceptable to the public and modern.”
The resulting style, called Art Deco, captured Yuspeh’s attention for what he said was “the purity of the design,” and he has been collecting Art Deco pieces for more than 35 years. Much of his collection includes periodicals that provide sources for research as well as inspiration.
The first piece he bought was a cigarette case that had a built-in lighter. Another early addition was the “All Color Book of Art Deco” by Dan Klein; Yuspeh wanted every piece featured in the book, and little by little, he has added many of these to his collection.
Neena and Rick Florsheim collect a number of things but featured in the “Revealed” exhibit are sterling silver spoons and a 19th Century oil painting. Neena said, “We collect because we feel like it is a way of maintaining and carrying on other people’s stories.”
When they were newly married, they visited garage sales and found themselves drawn to sterling silver spoons, particularly those that had initials or a date on them. They could not understand why someone would get rid of these, since the spoon had been engraved for someone, so they started taking them in to be the stewards of these memories.
This collection now numbers more than 100, and each one has a story.
Audrey Laufman said she enjoys collecting prints because they constitute pieces of history.
She learned about that when she lived in a suburb of Washington D.C. Laufman took a class at the Smithsonian on the history of printmaking, which taught her that many artists did not sign their prints.
Armed with this information, she made her first purchase, a Toulouse-Lautrec that was stamped with the artists imprint at auction. She then decided to go to New York, where she found a Chagall print from his “Daphnis and Chloe” series.
“I still remember the beautiful green,” she said. “I could just fall into it.”
The dealer asked if she wanted wide margins or narrow margins. Having learned in class that a restruck print is less valuable, Audrey balked and tore up her check. As she said (quoting Pope), “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Today, this print with either margin would cost over $45,000.
Initially, Marie and Jim Seder collected contemporary art, but as they visited galleries, they were attracted to outsider and folk art. They were drawn especially to the people and their stories which informed the works’ creation.
Their collection focuses primarily on self-taught artists, and many of the pieces include found objects. Marie’s background as a psychiatric nurse helped her understand the artists better; many of whom had emotional problems or had lived in group homes.
“It makes you realize how special and unusual these people are, and I just wanted to give them the respect that was due to them,” she said.
Ethan Schupper may only be nine, but he is already a serious collector. From baseball cards to rocks, foreign currency to postcards and books, Ethan loves diversity within his collection.
Some of his rocks are crystals and others are just rocks that look cool, he said. He began amassing baseball cards two years ago.
“My dad inspired me,” Ethan says, “he showed me his baseball cards.” Dad Brian Schupper has more than 20,000 cards and Ethan is well on his way to this count, with 1000 cards of his own.
Ethan doesn’t play favorites, he likes all of his cards, but really enjoys the information they convey. Each card “shows you how good different players are and what team they played for.”
The Jewish Museum Milwaukee invites young collectors like Ethan to showcase their collections on Sunday, Feb. 24. See the announcement on page 20 of the print edition or the Events section of this Web site.
Ellie Gettinger is the education director at the Jewish Museum Milwaukee.
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