Celso Fioravante
São Paulo
Founder and editor of Mapa das Artes, a Brazilian art guide with both digital and bimonthly printed editions, Fioravante started his collection in 1996 while working as an art journalist. Today it includes some 500 drawings, paintings, sculptures, and photographs. Among his holdings are pieces by Eliseu Visconti, Antonio Maluf, Sergio de Camargo, Franz Weissmann, Amílcar de Castro, Vania Mignone, and Egidio Rocci. “About 90 percent of my collection was purchased at auctions and galleries. I rarely buy directly from an artist’s studio, unless he or she is not represented by any gallery,” says Fioravante, who in 2010 created the annual Exhibition for Artists Without Galleries, with artists submitting their work for consideration via an open call.

Arthur de Ganay
Berlin
As a young architecture student in Paris, de Ganay was inspired to begin collecting art after encountering Hiroshi Sugimoto’s large-scale photographs in 1995. He has since expanded his collection to include works by a number of architectural and landscape photographers like Elger Esser, Thomas Ruff, and Arwed Messmer. A building that used to be a jam factory along the river Spree now houses his collection and is open to the public by appointment.

Maxwell Graham
New York
The owner of Essex Street, a Lower East Side gallery that he recently relocated from its eponymous block to Eldridge Street, Graham, formerly director of Renwick Gallery in SoHo, is an art dealer and curator. His move to the LES reflects his interests, which tend toward artists — including Mandla Reuter, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, and Helena Almeida — whom he feels get more attention in Europe than they do in New York. As a gallerist Graham seeks to correct this wrong: Just last winter, for example, he mounted the critically acclaimed New York return of text-based artist Peter Fend. To inaugurate his new space in April, Graham turned to Owen Land, a well-regarded American filmmaker who nonetheless had yet to have a solo gallery exhibition in his home country.

Taymour Grahne
New York
Originally from Beirut, Grahne now lives in New York, where he is pursuing an M.A. in art business. His collection focuses on contemporary Middle Eastern works. “There is a significant level of artistic talent and creativity coming out of the region,” he says. “New Yorkers are enamored when they visit my apartment and see all the Middle Eastern art on the walls.” (Grahne also keeps a blog tracking his own interests and discoveries at artofthemideast.com.) Recent acquisitions include work by Reza Derakshani (Iran), Mohannad Orabi (Syria), and Mouna Bassili Sehnaoui (Lebanon). The latter artist created one of Grahne’s prized pieces, a suite of paintings called “3 Divas.” The series “came from the artist’s desire to pay tribute to some of the greatest singers and musicians in the Middle East and France: Oum Kalthoum, Edith Piaf, and Asmahan.”