Over the past five decades, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and her husband, Gustavo A. Cisneros, have amassed one of the world’s most important collections of Latin American art. They are among the few collectors who have appeared in every edition of ARTnews Top 200 Collectors List. A longtime trustee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Phelps de Cisneros has donated more than 200 works to MoMA and funded the creation of a research institute on Latin American art there.
What is your earliest memory?
Many of my earliest memories are of my great-grandfather, the ornithologist William Henry Phelps (1875–1965), and his fascinating collection of tropical bird specimens. I remember spending time with him as a young girl in Venezuela, mesmerized by his efforts to preserve the natural world. It inspired my awareness of the extraordinary level of care and detail required to preserve a collection and make it available for study.
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Where are you most satisfied?
In our house by the sea with my love, my husband of 52 years.
What are you reading right now?
i’m rereading In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki, a book that shaped the way I look at art and the world. I’m also reading Estrella de Diego’s new book Unseen meadowAND The Year of Dangerous Days: Riots, Refugees and Cocaine in Miami 1980 by Nicholas Griffin.
What are you listening to?
Our Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC) team is obsessed with Kermesse, an Argentinian duo we discovered through a 2021 collaboration.
What makes art valuable?
When I think about what makes something valuable, I think about cultural value and educational value – that’s first and foremost for me, and that’s what informs CPPC’s work. I believe that the value of a work of art is directly related to what it means to a culture and a people, how it can expand horizons, bring underrepresented voices and start new conversations. If it can do that, it’s worth it.
If you could own any piece of art (not already in your collection), what would it be?
of Mondrian Broadway Boogie Woogie, no questions asked. I always wanted to see it side by side
with paintings by Latin American artists like [Joaquín] Torres-García and Alejandro Otero from our collection, but since I could not, we are happy to have donated their artwork to MoMA and so, today
the three artists sit side by side and engage in dialogue.
Courtesy CPPC
What’s something you do at home that might surprise people?
Drink Fony Negroni!
If you could travel back in time to any period in art history, what would it be?
The past is overrated. Let’s look forward! Appreciate the past, learn from it, but move forward.
Who was a mentor for you?
There are so many people who have guided me over the years. First, Sofía Imber, founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Caracas, who was invaluable in teaching me how to look at art. Also, the wonderful dealer Thomas Ammann, and of course, Paulo Herkenhoff, the Brazilian curator and art critic and a dear friend.
What was your best museum experience?
The Teshima Art Museum in Japan imitates a single drop of water standing still on a solid surface. installing Matrix by artist Rei Naito and architect Ryue Nishizawa has water droplets constantly emerging from various parts of the interior floor. The whole experience was sublime.
What is more virtuous in the art world?
The way in which the canon expands (ever expanding, never shrinking) to include previously marginalized voices.
What’s the funniest thing in the art world?
Speculation and the speed with which fads come and go.
A version of this article appears in the 2022 edition of ARTnews’ Top 200 Collectors issue.
