A feud between PIMCO founder Bill Gross and neighbors involving a large glass sculpture and the Gilligan’s Island theme song was finally settled. Maybe.
What I Buy and Why: Former IBM Executive Marilyn Johnson on the Advantage of Hanging Art in the Laundry Room
Top collectors share their strategies (and obsessions).
Portrait of Marilyn Johnson.
A version of this article first appeared in the fall 2020 Artnet Intelligence Report, which you can download for free here.
Marilyn Johnson is a former IBM executive whose collection spans a wide range of media, eras, and subjects. Johnson, who is also a board member at the Blanton Museum of Art, spoke to us from her home in Austin, Texas.
What was your first acquisition?
A print in Nice, France, in 1997 by an artist named Herbert Dayan. He was doing a series about March flowers that reminded me of the Impressionists, who I always liked because they brought art out into the commons. I now have it hanging in my laundry room so that people don’t look at the washer and dryer!