Businessman

I was always very focused on how people dressed.

Take Damien Hirst out of contemporary art history, and there's an incredible void. Great artists, like great people, have second acts.

Honestly, I grew up in pretty modest circumstances. We were a middle-class family.

I've never been what they call a 'pure gallerist.' I find that somewhat pretentious, honestly - I'm an art dealer. I like to show great artists of our time, but I also like dealing. And I think they reinforce each other.

I believe in the popularizing of art. But when you get right down to it, it's a bit of an elitist world. Not just economically elitist - how many people read poetry?

Good jazz has been a big part of my life as far as my interest in music, and... It's kind of weird now with music, the way technology is, with downloading and iPods and electronic distribution, and its kind of - you miss something, I think.

When a great artist gets my attention, I pursue it. If I don't, someone else will, you know what I'm saying?

Nobody really needs a painting. It's something you kind of create value for in a way that you don't with a company. It's an act of collective faith what an object is worth. Maintaining that value system is part of what a dealer does, not just making a transaction but making sure that important art feels important.

San Francisco has always been a great city for art collectors.

I'm not in the luxury-goods business. I sell unique objects. I wish I was in luxury goods because then I could just call the factory and say, 'I need 10,000 more of whatever.' But I can't - because then it's not art, it's something else.

I've never been on a board, but I just went on the board for Jazz at Lincoln Center. I'm very happy about that.

The art world is never going to be popular like the NFL, but more people are buying art and I think that's cushioning, to a great extent, our art-market cycles.

The more people who look at great art, the better for our culture.

The art market is global now, and there's becoming more of an international consensus about what constitutes good art.

I never really took a proper art class in college. I just started reading art magazines and going to galleries. I was really drawn to it.

Some people buy art because they're confident that it'll be a good store value, and this is kind of a recent phenomenon.

You have to be a little bit cautious when the market gets quite strong because there's a tendency to anoint a genius artist every other day. That would be a word of advice for the collectors out there.

Naturally, liquidity is a big factor in any market that seems to be a lot of money in the world, and there's a lot of discretionary money.

I don't think the art market is for everybody. Yeah, of course we have a global gallery. But we're like the one-tenth of the one-tenth of the one-tenth. OK? Not just who's buying but who's really seriously engaged with art.

My gallery represents a lot of figurative artists.