Former Graduate Curatorial Assistant (2021–2022) and NYU Ph.D. candidate Samuel Allen gives a virtual tour of “Mostly New: Selections from the NYU Art Collection.” Featuring Adam Fuss’s Jim and Joe photograph and other works donated by the Cottrell-Lovett Collection.
Press
New Home For The Grey Art Gallery, NYU’s Fine Arts Museum
The Grey Art Gallery, New York University’s widely admired fine arts museum, will move to larger quarters at 18 Cooper Square from its current location on Washington Square East. The move is due, in part, to a major gift from Dr. James Cottrell and Mr. Joseph Lovett, which was announced a year ago. Longtime art patrons, social activists, and downtown Manhattan residents, Cottrell and Lovett have already gifted some 40 works from their extensive collection of downtown New York artists.
The Grey Art Gallery’s Transformational Gift
The Grey Art Gallery, New York University’s widely admired fine arts museum, is pleased to announce a major gift from Dr. James Cottrell and Mr. Joseph Lovett, longtime art patrons, social activists, and downtown Manhattan residents. The gift includes over 200 artworks from their extensive collection of downtown New York artists from the past 50 years.
Donation to Grey Art Gallery
NYU’s Grey Art Gallery, a downtown jewel among NYC’s art museums, will expand art collection and create named study center.
The Grey Art Gallery, New York University’s widely admired fine arts museum, is pleased to announce a major gift from Dr. James Cottrell and Mr. Joseph Lovett, longtime art patrons, social activists, and downtown Manhattan residents. The gift includes over 200 artworks from their extensive collection of downtown New York artists from the past 50 years.
While the Grey—which closed in March 2020 because of the pandemic—had previously been planning to undertake renovations, the gift has enabled the museum to explore a more ambitious plan. Staff members are working with Ennead Architects to design renovated facilities that will highlight the importance of the arts on campus and reshape 2 the visitor experience for all audiences. Key among the major anticipated improvements are a named Cottrell-Lovett Gallery and the creation of the Cottrell-Lovett Study Center, which will enable researchers, faculty, and students to have more direct access to the collection of nearly 6,000 objects.
Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Museum of Art collection offers peek at couple’s New York treasures
Matthew J. Palm
Orlando Sentinel, November 17, 2016
For more than 40 years, partners James Cottrell and Joseph Lovett have been collecting art. They first offered Central Florida a peek into their extensive collection in 2004 at Orlando Museum of Art. Now, OMA has a new exhibition of the New Yorkers’ treasures called “The Conversation Continues.”
The works present a look at the development of the New York art scene, says OMA curator Hansen Mulford. “They’ve collected from the 1970s to the present,” he says. “The two of them were running around Manhattan, seeing what was going on. They collected things in a timely way.”
Read full review at: orlandosentinel.com
SECAC
The Conversation Continues
Keri Watson
SECAC, September 16, 2016
Personal identity politics come into play in Cottrell and Lovett’s collecting strategies, as much of their collection was acquired either through Cottrell and Lovett’s personal relationship with artists or through AIDS fundraisers. The Basquiat was bought at the inaugural AIDS auction for Gay Men’s Health Crisis in 1982, and works by Laurie Simmons, Cindy Sherman, and Vic Muniz were acquired at the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America’s annual auction. A centerpiece of the exhibition was a collection of multimedia works by Barton Benes (1942-2012), a New York-based artist and good friend of Cottrell and Lovett. When many of his friends started dying of AIDS, and Benes, himself, tested HIV-positive, he began incorporating pills, capsules, intravenous tubes, and HIV-infected blood into his art. On display were twelve of his works that combine 1950s Dick and Jane illustrations of everyday life decorated with capsules and pills of antiviral drugs used to treat HIV. At first glance these objects appear to be nostalgic reminders of childhood innocence, but the juxtaposition of Cold War-era children’s books with HIV drugs, challenges notions of childhood, safety, and American exceptionalism. Benes’s small images mix media and styles to evoke a biting critique of stereotypical gender norms and contemporary culture.
Read full review at: secacart.org
NY Arts
Co-Conspirators: Artist and Collector
Barbara Rosenthal
NY Arts, November 2005
“James Cottrell, an anesthesiologist interested in the human brain, and his partner, Joseph Lovett, interested in the lives of artists, were among the “top” 100 Collectors of 2001 named by Arts and Antiques magazine. They have assembled work throughout the career-spans of many of the artists they regard. Curator Sue Scott took the opportunity of their domicile renovation to assemble their trove, which then became a traveling show of paintings and works on paper that began at the Orlando Museum of Art, and is currently on view throughout two floors of the Chelsea Museum….”
The Charleston Gazette
All That Art
Bob Schwarz
The Charleston Gazette, September 6, 2007
“WHEN James Cottrell was an eighth-grader at Marmet Junior High School, his art teacher – Mrs. Virginia Lawson, he recalls – wanted her students to learn some art history.
In a long-ago time before Google, Cottrell researched several artists and wrote vignettes about each… Now, he and partner Joseph Lovett have assembled a collection of 400 pieces of contemporary art, 84 of which go on display Saturday in the Clay Center’s art galleries….”