COLLECTOR TURNS HOME INTO STATEMENT ON ART

It’s a collection that would make a museum director drool with envy. There are scores of pieces by the giants of abstract expressionism and modern masters of photography: Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, Stella, Motherwell, Steinberg, David Smith, Cartier-Bresson, Eugene Smith, Ansel Adams.

But this art is not in any museum. Gregory Michaelson, 61, retired industrialist and art collector, has assembled the stunning, still growing collection in a home built specifically to house these artworks.

The 18-foot ceilings of his 70-foot-long living room can easily accommodate canvases 10 feet high or 15 feet wide. A huge, brilliant yellow, red, blue and green Sam Francis canvas holds the wall at one end of the room, while paintings by artists such as Motherwell, de Kooning, Kline and Frankenthaler proclaim their own bold statements down its length.

It’s the same in virtually every room of the house. Michaelson (not his real name--the collector requested that he not be identified) has assembled his extensive collection in only six years.

The first time Michaelson saw a work of abstract art, his inclination was “to run away from it.

“About 10 years ago, I could recognize a Stella. I knew I hated Sam Francis. I wasn’t about to spend any time figuring out what these characters were doing.”

Today that attitude has changed. Michaelson enjoys trying to fathom what the artists were saying in their paintings. He has become an old hand at making the rounds of New York galleries, looking for a good painting by an artist to help complete his collection.

“It’s like a disease. You get hooked on the damn thing,” he said of his hobby.

A gruff, tough-talking Midwesterner who served in the Marines during World War II, Michaelson is anything but the stereotype of the aesthetic art lover. His appreciation of the art, however, is genuine.

“I’m the first guy to tell you I don’t know anything about art,” Michaelson said. “I know more than a lot of people, but I don’t know a . . . thing. People who talk about knowing art are full of crap.”

Michaelson’s interest in abstract art developed slowly. It’s “an evolutionary thing,” he said. He was first exposed to the abstract artscape of painters like Kline, Stella, Diebenkorn and Brice Marden by his first wife. The key to learning to appreciate abstract art, he said, was reading up on the artists and looking at art in museums and galleries.

He started buying small, then graduated to more and more expensive acquisitions. Having sold his business for millions of dollars didn’t hurt. Top paintings by Franz Kline do not come cheap.

To Michaelson, the art he collects reflects the philosophical comments by artists of his generation and younger generations.

“I think the essence of the sculpture revival today is being very flexible . . . being very thoughtful, being very open minded,” he said. “I don’t think we can be too open minded or too thoughtful about issues and things around us that challenge us. That’s what this room does for me.”

Perched at a grouping of seats near one end of the architecturally simple living room--the art takes precedence over the architecture--he gestured to all the paintings in general and a Robert Motherwell in particular.

“I’m just fussing with that guy right now. He describes space. You read passages (of Motherwell’s writing) and you say, ‘What the hell is he saying?’ I know he said something very important, but I’m having trouble unscrambling it.”

The cerebral Motherwell is at odds with the more immediate art of his fellow American painter, Sam Francis. “Sam Francis is directly influenced by the environment in which he paints,” Michaelson said. “That blank space in there,” he pointed to the brilliant Francis canvas. “He’s said, ‘I left that there so you (the viewer) can paint your own (art).’ He’s also said he has left blank spaces because what you don’t paint is as important as what you do paint.”

Although Michaelson appreciates abstract art, he would be “the last guy in the world” to impose it on somebody else.

He believes art can enhance the work environment: “When you’re dealing with guys in a shop, you don’t put Stellas in their hands. They don’t understand that. You do things within their realm of visual understanding that make them happy and content. Maybe it’s just wall paper of vacation spots, Carmel ocean scenes. You don’t want to make people uncomfortable.

“That’s why photography is such a good art form, because it’s something everybody understands. It’s a great way to lead people into this form of (abstract) art.”

For Michaelson, the dozens of prints he owns by photographers like Ansel Adams, Cartier-Bresson and Irwin Penn provide a strong counterpoint to the abstract art. A section of the house containing his office and guest bedrooms has been allocated to photography. No abstract art intrudes here.

To Michaelson, photography represents humor and the concrete realities of life. “Without a sense of humor, you can’t get through the world,” he said. “I’ve never found a creative person without a sense of humor.”

Michaelson’s photographic purchases mirror all-American scenes from the outdoors of Ansel Adams to rodeos in Wyoming, but they also point to the inequities of the world. One wall of a hallway is hung with portraits of gorgeous medieval cathedrals. The facing wall portrays the abject poverty of Afghanistan.

Michaelson sees his art collection not as an end in itself, but a tool for communication.

“My name isn’t important,” Michaelson said. “This house isn’t important. This art is important when it is talked about, in my point of view, in this way. Abstract art forces me to think . . . to start seeking, to start wanting to know more.”