why collect art?

A client recently purchased the painting, "Three Ballerinas" by Peggi Kroll-Roberts, she had seen on the gallery's web page.  I shipped it to her and this is the touching email she followed up with:

  

"It is just everything I hoped for.  It made me weep.

 I chose this painting, Three Ballerinas, in honor of the memory of my sister, Jane.  Jane fell and hit her head while in the hospital where she was undergoing tests.  Her blood was so thin that the hemorrhage in her skull could not be treated, and so she died at age 56, on August 20, 2011.  Jane was not a dancer, but ballet was her passion.  She was extremely knowledgeable, an expert, of ballet and dancers for 40 years.  In 2009, she took me to the Metropolitan Opera in NYC where we saw what was to be the performance of Giselle with Nina Ananiashvili in her last season with the American Ballet Theatre.  It was stunning, as even a neophyte such as I could appreciate.  As we left the Met, one woman said I need never see another performance of Giselle in my life.  We then saw many people from the audience having their picture taken with the poster of Nina advertising Giselle in front of the Met.  The next day the New York Times Published a full page review of the performance we attended that positively glowed and included color photographs of the dancers.  Since that performance I have watched for a painting or sculpture that captured the elusive charm of that experience."

And that is why we collect art.