Jacob Collins and the Art of Partying

It was one day back in the eighties that I took stock of my options in life. I said to myself on the one hand, I could take my spare money and buy a bigger apartment--this is no small feat here in Manhattan--more closets, guest room, the works--or I could forget all that and be an art collector. Keep climbing the stairs, keep on battling the idiots at UPS and FedEx who will never deliver a package when they're supposed to; keep sleeping on the floor when guests drop in from Australia; just inure myself to all these little discomforts and collect paintings and drawings and I somehow I'd have a richer life. I had some vague notion that I'd fine myself at cocktail parties with Park Avenue matrons in diamonds and bohemian artists in cut-off jeans. That was the dream. Well I’ve been to hundreds of art-related affairs since then, but nothing, I repeat nothing can compare to the party I went to last fall given by Jacob Collins.

Jacob is, quite simply, one the most fascinating individuals alive in New York today. He is a man with everything, which is all the more astonishing in that generally people in this town with youth, looks, highly esteemed artistic reputations, a wife and fancy, sprawling real estate tend to be the sports figures, TV personalities or movie stars; the types that thrive on calling attention to themselves. Yet here is Jacob, a low key, pointedly untrendy and reserved father of three. His work is so archly, retrogradably conservative it has spawned its own counter-revolution among young “rebellious” artists.

Jacob has been lucky enough in life to have the means to follow his own path in the art world. Eschewing current trends he decided his artistic ideal was a style largely abandoned with the advent of Modernism in the 1890’s, and developed a renaissance in the approach to art that is sensitive, polished, sensual and highly realistic. As I wrote in a piece for artcritical.com a few years ago, he tends to avoid references to 21^st Century life and its artifacts in his work. He will rarely show an electronic device or current fashion, choosing to focus on timeless woodwork, drapery, flora and flesh. I saw Jacob’s first NY exhibition about fifteen years ago and he was popular from the start. By now his works command very serious sums and he has spawned a following of art students whom he teaches and mentors.

Jacob invited me to his opening last night at the Hirschl & Adler Gallery on Madison Avenue. The gallery was packed. I made my way through the dense crowd to find him standing before an arresting nude ($75,000). Jacob was dressed in high style with a boldly patterned shirt and bright yellow-gold tie and a quiet charcoal grey suit. I spoke with him briefly to express my regrets that I would not be able to accept his invitation to a party at his house after the opening because of a conflicting dinner. “Come over afterwards,” he offered, “we’ll be going all night…”. I did. At 10:30 I ruthlessly extricated myself from my Uptown dinner party, which went unnoticed by no one. I emerged from my cab at Jacob’s corner and ran into a lovely couple I’ve known for years. They attempted to engage me in chitchat. “Sorry,” I apologized, “I’ve got to keep on my way. I’m off to a glamorous party.” At about eleven I rang the doorbell to Jacob’s East Side house. It’s not an apartment, but a real townhouse that you enter from the sidewalk, not through a lobby. I walked into his studio space, the entire ground floor, that also doubles as sleeping quarters for his minivan. I’d been here before, and I felt as though I were walking into an Oscar Wilde novel. I’m Lord Henry Wotton paying a visit to Basil Hallward, the famous society portraitist in “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”

The studio has a typical artsy grunginess with an old sofa, easels and paints everywhere, plaster casts of Old Master busts, and works by Jacob and his student acolytes hung indifferently throughout the space including one magnificent drawing of his mother wearing a stylish necklace. The place is dark; even darker than usual. Pop music is playing and there are a score of partiers lounging, talking, schmoozing all over the place. Jacob’s black Labrador retriever, Finny, is quite exhausted from all the attention he’s getting, however still maneuvering for more.

I go up a winding staircase to the living quarters and I feel like an avatar in a video game that’s ascended to a higher realm from grunge to glory in one flight of stairs. Passing through a brightly lit salon, I find Jacob seated at a large, round table with a half dozen of his elegant friends. (Jacob’s wife, the highly successful novelist, Ann Brashares, has already retired upstairs with the children.) Strung out from the tension of his opening, he is visibly exhausted, yet he graciously interrupts his conversation to introduce me to each of his guests. His kitchen, 225 square feet larger than my entire apartment, and the rest of the second floor are decorated with elevated taste and refinement, accented by the occasional Collins oil.

Jacob, holding a glass of red wine, chats with me for a while about the opening and other gallery matters. His guests, most of them apparently young parents eager to relieve their sitters, begin to leave, but not until after enquiring about Jason’s itinerary, and whether he would make it to the beach house, and did he plan, as they did, to build a sea wall. Shortly all are gone, leaving the two of us alone upstairs catching up. Jacob decides it’s time to join the young artists in the studio below. “My feet are killing me,” he confides, as we descend into the funky darkness “I went all over town this afternoon looking for the right pair of shoes for tonight and these just aren’t broken in.”

Jacob recedes into the rear studio room, cleared out with a big space for the occasion, and starts everyone dancing. He favors Donna Summer 70’s and Motown 60’s music, and it blares from his stereo system. No problem—no neighbors to complain. I remained in the middle studio room, and chatted with some deliciously idealistic students and their dates, friends and significant others. The best part was hearing from each who they thought were the most talented among them. Chatting with them reminded me of what it used to be like, ere so long ago, to be young enough to want to dedicate one’s life to being an artist. I learned a bit about the Grand Central Art Academy, an institution that Jacob founded, the goal of which is “to train a generation of highly skilled, aesthetically sensitive artists in the humanist tradition.” in the words of the Academy. Last year it opened its doors in new quarters, Midtown, at 20 West 44^th Street, a few steps from Grand Central Terminal. Jacob serves as an instructor there. The school largely supplements the elite group of artists, his “Water Street Atelier,” that Jacob moved from Brooklyn to his Manhattan townhouse studio. I spoke with a charming young woman with several discrete tattoos and piercings, stretched out on the sofa, his student, who repeatedly had to fend off amorous advances from Jacob’s pooch. I spoke with a tall, angular, statuesque young fellow and told him exactly which statue strongly resembled him at MoMA, (Wilhelm Lehmbruck’s 1913 Standing Youth). I said hello to Kate Lehman and Travis Schlacht, both Collin protégés who have gone on to create successful emerging careers.

But all this chatting with twenty-somethings, simultaneously refreshing and absurd (“all you really have to do is be talented and work hard and you’ll be a successful artist…”), had to come to an end because disco music beckoned. I joined a young woman from Wisconsin with her blond hair braided over the top of her head like Eva Braun, and we danced like crazy for a few numbers. But then Jacob entered and took the floor and there was little to do but stand still and watch. When Jacob dances the floor clears around him. This was hardly necessary, because he soon stepped up on one of his models’ pedestals and claimed the stage. Jacob danced like a go-go boy. Or maybe it was a male stripper. He was intense. He was passionate He was only half-joking. His jacket came off. He lost his gold tie. His bold shirt came undone. However you characterize his movements, they were certainly worth gawking at. Now I have to wonder, just where did he learn to dance like that? Did he pay a private instructor? Was it from watching Soul Train? Could that have been the source of all his riches, go-go dancing? Now a new track was playing, quite obviously a longtime favorite of Collins’. James Brown started braying “Say it loud!” and the blondish Jacob finished the line, ejaculating a cathartic “I’M BLACK AND I’M PROUD!!” “Say it loud!” “I’M BLACK AND I’M PROUD!”

I returned to dancing with my Midwestern siren and took stock of all the loveliness around me. Being a guest, of course, one must behave although it certainly is not what one really wants to do deep down. But I kept control and held onto my reputation yet another night. Then went home, climbed the four flights of stairs to my own little place, and had some very interesting dreams. I hadn’t had a drop to drink that night but I was fully intoxicated by the magic of the evening. Holly Golightly held a memorable soirée in the movie “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, but this was real life. Jacob Collins may have great artistic skills, but none of them surpasses is adeptness in the art of throwing a party.