Two collectors met over coffee and Jackson Pollock

THE NEW YORK TIMES
Show Us Your Walls
By Warren Strugatch

Rick Friedman and Cindy Lou Wakefield with some of the more than 250 artworks on display in Mr. Friedman’s Southampton home, including pieces by Henri Matisse (“Head of Woman,” top far left), Jackson Pollock (“Untitled,” from 1940, top to the right of the mirror), Willem de Kooning and Lee Krasner. Credit 2017 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 2017 Karel Appel Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 2017 John Chamberlain/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 2017 The Willem de Kooning Foundation/ Artists Rights Society, New York; 2017 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 2017 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; 2017 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Gordon Grant for The New York Times

SOUTHAMPTON---In the late ’70s and early ’80s, as an entrepreneurial and luxuriously mustachioed young man on the New York nightclub scene, Rick Friedman created a televised dance competition at Regine’s disco, where he met Andy Warhol. Mr. Friedman, 63, and his partner, Cindy Lou Wakefield, 58, make frequent forays to local galleries (including ones owned by Mark Borghi and Peter Marcelle); to auctions at Christie’s in New York and Amsterdam; and occasionally on acquisition or authentication jaunts to Europe. These are edited excerpts from a conversation with the couple, which began with a walk through the reception area of Mr. Friedman’s home. [More]