Judith Selkowitz '62 and Art Advisory Services
   by Peter Norris

It was another gorgeous late-summer day in New York. Jeannie was in Washington for the day, with plans to fly back to New York in the evening. I had made the trip for two reasons, first to help my son move his belongings from one end of Manhattan to the other for his final college semester. You all know the routine. And, second, to meet at three o'clock with Judith Selkowitz, Miss Hall's class of 1962.

Happily for me, though, Evan and I were a little late. We loaded the car at Houston Street and headed for 116th, but it was already 2:30, so I was able to substitute a conversation about art for the carrying of heavy boxes into a dormitory!

You know that, in this series of alumnae interviews, I have had glimpses into many fascinating and accomplished careers and lives. As I talked to Judith Selkowitz, though, I realized that two things were distinctive and very impressive about her work. First, she had invented a career in the best entrepreneurial style, and, second, her career enabled her to have broad influence, through her taste and aesthetic sophistication, on the art work that many people see every day.

Judith had a broad arts education. It began with trips to art auctions in the Berkshires when she was growing up. She remembers being able to buy cheap prints and paintings, by the way, and is shocked by the prices in art and antiques in the Berkshires today. She was a student in Betty Klein's classes at Miss Hall's and most appreciated the pageants. She particularly remembers her one year as stage manager.

It was at Skidmore, under the tutelage of James Kettlewell, though, that Judith was really hooked on art as her life interest. Professor Kettlewell was curator of the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls and was connected to other arts institutions in the area, so she got to see a wide range of art work. Upon graduation she got a Fulbright to go to Rome to study the European activities of members of the Hudson River School. She recalls the penthouse apartment in Rome for $50 per month and being able to live fabulously on her $180-per-month stipend. This was 1967.

When she returned to New York, she had the serendipitous moment that formed her career. She took a wrong elevator that opened to a floor occupied by Xerox and said, "There is nothing on the walls." She knew that people were often intimidated when they tried to buy art without enough knowledge, and it seemed reasonable that she could provide a service. She could find the artwork that would go on the walls. And Xerox became her first client as an art advisor.

She then started Art Advisory Services, Inc. and has compiled an extraordinary list of clients and achievements in the last thirty years. One of her current marketing pieces shows her recently completed installations for Price Waterhouse, as featured in the magazine Interior Design. Judith selected works by contemporary artists and photographers, antique posters, Central American pre-Classic terra-cotta figures, and a 19th century Japanese textile. She commissioned a sculpture drawing that accentuates the form of a staircase at one end of a long and elegant foyer. The work is gorgeous. Her selections elevate the style of the rooms. They give flavor and definition.

For Standard Chartered Bank, Judith found 19th century China trade paintings that are displayed in a sharply defined black and gold Asian-influenced room. She also discovered, in storage, a series of Warhol flower prints which she had framed and installed playfully in a light room of cafeteria tables, red tulips, and green apples.

The list of clients is very long, from ABC Network in the Industrial and Commercial category to Smith Barney and Republic Bank, Dallas, in Investment and Banking, to Aetna Life and Casualty in Insurance. There are dozens of companies. And, in addition, there are many individual clients. It is impressive.

The demand of this work, of course, is that Judith be very knowledgeable and have extensive resources all over the world. Typically, when she sees a client's space, she has an idea, but, of course, the trick is to find the art work that matches the idea. Friends sometimes send her Polaroids of work they think she might be interested in. She remembers once seeing the paintings she was looking for while she was on the way to the theater in London. And, of course, since she commissions contemporary work, she has to be extraordinarily familiar with the current art scene.

For me, though, perhaps the most fascinating part of the discussion was my guided tour of the paintings that she has hanging in her apartment. These works showed her wide-ranging interests and, as in all of her work, a taste for fine and often surprising works, from architectural drawings to abstract paintings to antique posters. I will try to give you an idea.

I particularly liked a 19th century Viennese painting of interiors of Von Hapsburg palaces and a striking French architectural drawing with a Maurice Denis mural in the background and an art deco desk and bookcases in the foreground. I also liked a heroic 1859 watercolor of the Assize courts in Manchester.

Judith's first purchase, a 19th century English watercolor of an Italian hill town, is exquisite. There is a lovely painting of a Southampton scene, a serene view of a pond and sailboats, by Robert Dash. On the opposite wall there is a 1954 abstract by Joan Mitchell and, in the next room, a Frank Gehry study for the Guggenheim in Bilbao. In the dining room, and in the background of the photo that accompanies this article, is a British Rail 1920s antique print of the Great Eastern Hotel at the Liverpool Street Station.

In everything we talked about, the detail of Judith's knowledge of her subject was obvious. In addition, her combination of unerring taste and what is clearly an adventurous spirit makes her choices compelling and unexpected. I felt sure that this combination accounts for her success and her impact. She has been interviewed for many major publications, from the Washington Post to Forbes, and she published an article entitled "Art and the Images of Corporate America" for the New York Times, a degree of attention created by the originality of what she has done.

It was a great pleasure for me to talk to her about her work and, I must say, a little humbling. She made me want to know more about the extraordinary art that has remained obscure, often even anonymous. In an hour or so she had oriented me toward her vision. So, I thought, if her choices have this strong effect on me, what about the thousands of others who see her installations every day?

It may be this ability that she has to penetrate beyond the famous and customary that is her real service. She has, in effect, hung a large number of permanent exhibits in work places and homes around the city and country based on her own taste and insight. Her influence on the taste of the culture, as a result, must be powerful for being subtle and unannounced. I can testify that her choices are so distinctive that they carve out a place in the mind.

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Art and Corporate America
Contract 11/00 

Interview with...Judith Selkowitz
L'Optimiste 4/23/97

Art and the Images of Corporate America
New York Times 6/21/92