Bunny and Jeff Dell: The Inadvertent Collectors

Bunny and Jeff Dell are artists and collectors of art by young emerging East End artists. Between their house in East Hampton and apartment in New York City, they own and display about 200 works.

Mrs. Dell's activities are prodigious and her enthusiasms contagious. She handles the sheer multitude and multiplicity of family events that crop up simultaneously, with a readiness of spirit, no matter what.

On a recent Friday night, she and Mr. Dell, a painter as well an editor of TV commercials, held a family memorial for Mr. Dell's mother, who had died a month earlier. That morning, they had visited Damon, the younger of their two sons, who was hospitalized with an infection, to make sure everything was all right before making their usual weekend drive to East Hampton.

Some Poster

A few weeks earlier this reviewer had seen each and every one of the paintings, sculptures, objects, whatnots, and whatevers, acquired over the last 13 years, now in East Hampton. The collection lines the walls from one end of their two-story house in Northwest Woods to the other and it is at the core of their daily lifestyle as well as their environment.

The collection began in 1984 when the couple bought the house and confronted a large wall in the ample living room "made for a large painting," as Mrs. Dell puts it.

"At first I was looking for a large poster. I was not thinking of anything beyond it," she said, looking at a 52-inch-by-80-inch colorful 1984 Ab stract Expressionist painting by Josh Dayton hanging there.

Mrs. Dell described seeing the painting at the Bologna Landi Gallery. "I did a crazy thing, which I had never done before. Joe Landi let me take it home without my buying it right then and there. . . . I leaned it right here. I called my friends: 'What do you think of this?' It was $2,400. I never spent so much on anything in my life."

"So everybody had a vote. At the time no one liked it except my real estate broker and the son of a friend. Suddenly I'm thinking, what am I, crazy? I'm the art person, I'm the one who likes it. I have never regretted it for one second." It was their first purchase. They now have 10 good-sized Daytons. But the first one is still her favorite.

Before they knew they were collecting, the collection had begun. They always had bought works from their friends in a show of support, particularly from Mr. Dell's fellow students at the School of Visual Arts or from Mrs. Dell's fellow students at Hunter College, where she received a master's degree in art education in 1961.

Unusual Practice

"What you see is what we've got," Mrs. Dell said. They already have added space with a second floor master bedroom as well as an enlarged dining area, and are planning another wing to accommodate the works they know they will be compelled to buy.

A photograph of the original house when it was still a single story structure hangs in the master bedroom upstairs.

"Originally it was going to have two sliding glass doors but they went because we needed the wall space for our eight-foot Josh Dayton," Mrs. Dell said.

Mr. and Mrs. Dell have no idea whether the artists they buy will become recognized and their works go up in value, which is generally why most collectors buy comparatively inexpensive under-knowns.

Slater And Lichtenstein

"My first David Slater I got in Wolfie's restaurant in the Springs. In fact I got two. The next one I bought was from a show, 'Young Artists of the Hamptons,' at Guild Hall. The last one was from the Arlene Bujese Gallery. So from a restaurant to the museum and gallery he is certainly coming up in the world. But even if he doesn't, I love what he does and I am really committed to it."

"By accident we have some Roy Lich tenstein silkscreens that Jeff and I bought in the city. We were buying frames and we paid $40 for two framed prints from a woman who had a bunch of them. I was offered $13,000. It's that girl with a tear, bright red. I don't have any feeling for that. It's in the closet in New York. As I said, out here nothing is in the closet. And I don't know how to sell anything. It disturbs me to sell anything."

Personal Feeling

"We try not to be influenced if a critic likes something or doesn't. The important thing is how we feel about it as art and artist, a daily ongoing experience in terms of the painting, the sculpture, or whatever, and we have lots of whatevers," Mrs. Dell said.

"We are not looking for names, aside from the fact that we can't afford them. As for those artist big shots who live in the region and show at galleries like Gagosian, Pace, and Robert Miller, they don't really seem to show any interest in their not-yet-famous fellow artists, most of whom don't even show as yet in the city. . . ."

"You've got everything out here - from world-class fame to community charisma. It is probably the most unique group of artists in the world with a post World War II altogether American heritage."

Agelessness

"It's so exciting to buy original art, available and affordable . . . in this part of the world where the traditions have to do with being surrounded by it daily. . . ." Mrs. Dell is a vivid red-haired, ivory-skinned, green-eyed woman who seems somewhere in an ageless span, although we know by now she is hitting 60. Mr. Dell, a round-faced ruddy man, also somewhere in agelessness, with an eager expression ready for laughter, has a surface geniality that covers an underlying shyness. He is the perfect counterpart to his wife, quiet and clearly in awe of her bubbling articulate presence. He is working on a series of monotypes in which the letters "N" and "O" appear joined either as "ON" or "NO." Most recently, he has been working with computer generated prints.

He also is the founder and director of the Shootfirst Editorial, having begun as an animator after graduation from the School of Visual Arts.

Men Came First

"I have to admit that originally when we discovered that we were beginning to have what Elaine de Kooning called an "inadvertent collection," we thought we would focus on - I'm ashamed to admit it - 'Young Men of the Hamptons.' But I met Audrey Flack purely by chance, heard her speak at a conference in the city, and suddenly my consciousness was awakened," Mrs. Dell continued.

" 'What is the matter with me; what am I doing?' I said to myself. At the time, the nonprofit East Hampton Center for Contemporary Art was here and I called its director at the time, Jennifer Cross, and said I would like to buy the work of a woman. She showed me several paintings and I finally decided on the Hildy Maze you see here. At the same time I bought a print of Audrey Flack, who was showing her still life photographs at the Vered Gallery."

Branching Out

The number of the Dells' acquisitions has increased from six in 1985 to a peak of 35 in 1992. In 1996, they bought eight paintings. "Although we are primarily committed to the Hamptons, if I see something I love now, no matter where it is, and if I can afford to buy it, I buy it," Mrs. Dell said. She notes purchases in Boston and Miami, where she saw work by the outsider artist Purvis Young, whom she now collects.

Among the artwork at the Dells' East Hampton house is a metal plaque by the sculptor Bill King. It is inscribed: "To Bunny and Jeff Dell from the Art Community of East Hampton, June 6, 1995."

Other objects include Richard Minsky's hand-bound books and 40 pieces of Diane Mayo's ceramics. There are, in addition, Bill King's pair of wooden chairs called "Kiss Me" and "Me Too" and a mosaic coffee table made by Lee Krasner.

Discovering Lau

Mrs. Dell turns her attention to a painting by Rex Lau over the fireplace. "I was in the city at a gallery on 57th Street. The director for some reason asked me, 'Are you a collector?' Of course I fell in love with it.' I said to Jeff, 'You have to go look at it,' and then I called up Rex to make sure he did live out here. I invited him to lunch and we have been friends ever since. This was in 1985." The painting is an essentialized landscape, so minimalized it appears almost abstract.

"Remember Susan Tepper who funded the nonprofit gallery the East Hampton Center for Contemporary Art and tragically died so young? We bought her portraits, oils which she turned out by the dozen. She was wonderful and we still enjoy her work. She was so excited because it was one of the few times anybody bought her work."

Talk And Laughter

Mr. Dell and Mrs. Dell met as camp counselors in 1958 in Putnam Valley. They married a year later. All their children have tried painting, and their daughter, Felisa, paints flowers. Both father and daughter exhibit at Arlene Bujese.

The Dells also have a collection of old functional handmade pottery, from England and California, purchased from small antique shops here.

"I love them," Mrs. Dell said. "I use them when I entertain." The Dells are party givers. "The two things we like to do with our friends, besides talk art, is to laugh with them and to eat with them."