Autumn 2015
Interview with a Collector Anthony Caro, Writing Piece - Hand, 1978, wood and steel, varnished, 61cm © Barford Sculptures Ltd
ly-wrinkled face and stony eyes watching, knowingly. “She is my housekeeper, when I have my breakfast there is a face opposite me that’s seen so much.” When it comes to art, any surface will do, and the hi-
erarchy that can normally differentiate one room from another becomes irrelevant – bathroom, bedroom and drawing room are one and the same. Indeed, Ingram is entirely non-hierarchical in his approach to collecting and exhibiting art. “The collection is for people to en- joy and making it publicly accessible is a prime driver”. Including works by Barbara Hepworth, Edward Burra, Elisabeth Frink, Lynn Chadwick, Henri Gaudier-Brz- eska and Eduardo Paolozzi, he wants a public audience to encounter every work. It was while wandering through St Petersburg’s
Hermitage Museum in the late 1960s that Ingram first became excited about art, coming across a room bursting with Impressionist paintings. “It was a eu- reka moment!” However, his collecting habits started much later, almost by chance, in the early 2000s. “I was starting to eclectically collect in 2001, buying in- dividual pieces. I was going around auction houses and galleries, just using it as an opportunity to see fantastic art. The specialists told me that the art to which I kept being attracted was all from the same period, so it was then that I decided to concentrate on Modern Brit- ish Art, which was unfashionable at the time”. While Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth were already beyond his price point at that moment, many others were much more affordable. “It was when I was start- ing that I bought most of the big sculptures”. At a later stage, Ingram was pleased to be able to introduce both Moore and Hepworth into the collection.
It was in 2002 that Ingram sold his International
media agency to the advertising group WPP. Now, at the age of 71, and having amassed a total of over 650 works of art, his collection alone is estimated to be worth between £10-20 million. “I didn’t expect it to become such a passion, I need to hold myself back!” Having evolved to incorporate three strands – Mod- ern British Art, Young Contemporary Talent (art- ists graduating from art school), and ‘Inside Out’ (art produced by disadvantaged people including those who have spent time in prison) – already this year, 214 works have been loaned to numerous UK institutions.
“I’m still primarily buying pieces because
I really like them, but I’m also curating in my head as I go along”
“There’s an educational side to the collection which is really important, we make a point of lending to organisations as much as we can.” These include the Dulwich Picture Gallery, Bristol’s Royal West of Eng- land Academy and the Hepworth Wakefield, as well as The Lightbox in Woking, with which Ingram has col- laborated and where the Modern British Art collec- tion is based.
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