THE NEW YORK TIMES
Show Us Your Walls
By Hilarie M. Sheets
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| Monique and Ronald Ollie in front of Ed Clark’s “Untitled” (1975). Credit: Sam Gilliam/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Daniel Dorsa for The New York Times |
When Ronald Ollie was an engineering student at the Missouri University of Science and Technology in the early 1970s, he would take dates to the St. Louis Art Museum. Today, Mr. Ollie, a retired mechanical engineer, and his wife, Monique, who has a doctorate in biomedical engineering, talked about their collection in their Newark apartment, which has a spectacular view of Manhattan and walls covered with abstract work by black artists. The collecting compulsion was a pre-existing condition when Mr. Ollie met his future wife in 2003 at the
National Black Fine Art Show. “I have picked out a few pieces, but mine are in the back,” Ms. Ollie, who is a project manager at Johnson & Johnson, said good-naturedly. [
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| Herbert Gentry’s “Masquerade” (1986) at the Ollie home in Newark. The couple collect abstract works by black artists. Credit: Daniel Dorsa for The New York Times |
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| From left, Sam Gilliam’s “Through Circles” (2001) and Ed Clark’s “Untitled (Bastille Series)" (1991). Credit: Sam Gilliam/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Daniel Dorsa for The New York Times |
