Tools for Analysis of Art Collections and Collecting (23 Mar, 2026)Seminar for Collecting and Display invites you to its seminar on Monday, 23rd March, 2026, at 6pm GMT Kari Tuovinen will speak on: Tools for Analysis of Art Collections and Collecting.
Statements about art collections and collecting are often ambiguous. For example, what is meant with a “coherent collection” or a “bold collector”? Many properties of art collections and modes of collecting can be expressed in a systematic form with numeric indicators. The author has built a reference database of 70 collections, including the Gallup Art Foundation, Peggy Guggenheim and Vaticani Moderna collections. The database comprises reference values of 30 indicators that can be used for analysis of collection structural and process properties. The use will be demonstrated with three collecting process and collection structure case analyses.
Indicators on collection structure include, for example, the works’ time range, the number of artistic media, and price categories of the works. The structural profiles of the Greta Garbo and John Maynard Keynes collections will be compared with six indicators. Collecting process indicators comprise e.g. the number and type of purchase channels, budget, artist age distribution, as well as the lapse between work completion and purchase. The collecting process history of The Kouri Collection of Contemporary Art and the risk level of Professor Kouri’s collecting style will be investigated with a set of indicators. Indicators can also be used as a tool for testing statements about the nature of collections: the Critic Clement Greenberg stated that the private art collection of Erich Maria Remarque is coherent –this proposition will be tested with four indicator reference values.
The presentation will be concluded with a discussion on limitations and opportunities of the indicator tools. Also, a general framework for analysis of art collections will be proposed; the model elements are structure, process, and content.
Speaker biography Kari Tuovinen (M.S. Econ., Aalto University) is an independent scholar specializing in the study of art collections with a multidisciplinary and methodological perspective. He has published five peer-reviewed articles and presented at various domestic and international forums. Among the article topics are operationalisation of the concept of collection unity, identifying of collecting style profiles, and analysis of collection highlight work profiles. Kari’s current research interests include artwork disposal processes and deconstruction of collecting narratives.
JOINING INSTRUCTIONS
Our speaker will present in person so do join us if you can.
To attend in person: The seminar will take place in the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet St London WC1E 7HU, room Pollard 301. Please register with the Institute of Historical research by Sunday evening that you will be attending in person.
To attend online: Please register with the Institute of Historical Research by Sunday evening and you will be sent the zoom link on the day. If you do not receive the link and you wish to attend, please contact collectingdisplay@gmail.com. Some emails are still going to spam so if you don’t get a reply on the day, please email as an alternative adrianaturpin@gmail.com.
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