Contessa Gallery: A Haven for Art Admirers, Aficionados, and Ardent Collectors

You can’t spell Hartman without A-R-T. And Steven Hartman lives and breathes art, 24/7.

Owner and founder of Contessa Gallery, Hartman has been collecting art since the precocious age of 20, but his passion for collecting started years earlier.

“I’ve been a serial collector of everything since I’m 5 years old, from coins to stamps to beer cans to baseball cards to art to wine,” Hartman says. “I’ve always liked to judge, value and classify things, and grade them.”

ART + FINANCE = SUCCESS

Following a 15-year stint on Wall Street working as an investment advisor and vice president at UBS/PaineWebber, Hartman opened Contessa Gallery in Cleveland in 1999, expanding to a second gallery in Palm Beach in 2018 and a third outpost in Southampton this past summer.

Combining his love and knowledge of art with his business background, Hartman says, “I’m both left-brained and right-brained, and I get to use my creative side and business side, and I think that’s one of the reasons people use me as their art source.”

Once the gallery took off, Hartman, who is immediate past president of the Fine Art Dealers Association (FADA), was happy to relinquish his finance career.

“I just really enjoyed having my avocation being my vocation, and I’d always heard that people who can turn their passions into business can often do exciting things,” he says. “And I’ve been very blessed and am very grateful that I was able to do that.”

Each Contessa Gallery location offers the same roster of artists, with some tweaks, adapting to the market for each location. Among the artists they’ve focused on are Mr. Brainwash, David Drebin, Alexi Torres and Hijack.

Through the years, Contessa has become known as a “tastemaker gallery in the industry,” Hartman says, noting that they’ve helped advance mid-career artists towards the blue-chip level.

“That’s what we like doing: Taking artists that have built a solid foundation and then, through the respect we have in the industry and with our clientele, getting them to the end zone and building them up with museums, Forbes 400 members, Art News’ top 200 collectors, and things like that,” says Hartman, noting that getting these artists into significant collections has been a major focus of Contessa Gallery for the past decade.

A SOURCE FOR BUYERS

Serving as a middleman between artists and collectors is not unique in the art gallery business, Hartman admits, but Contessa Gallery has taken it to a new level, making it a primary part of its business.

Setting themselves apart from touristy galleries that attract customers, Contessa Gallery works with clients who buy 30, 40 or 50 pieces from them, confident that, with Hartman’s expertise in knowing what’s undervalued, fairly valued and overvalued, they’re getting the best price out there.

“We only buy things that we love, and we help clients build collections that are deeply meaningful to them on multiple levels, so that they can build a collection and then pass it down to generations of family or museums, ” Hartman says.

The gallery, Hartman adds, sources art directly from artists, estates and other dealers, “wherever makes the most sense and is most beneficial to our clients,” with most pieces costing between $25,000 and $250,000. Though they do sell items for under $25,000 and, on the other end, in the millions of dollars.

AN ECLECTIC COLLECTION

A direct reflection of Hartman’s own collecting aesthetic, Contessa Gallery offers an eclectic variety of art in a full range of media.

“That is sort of my own preferred method and my personality, and we have a lot of people who feel the same way and follow along in having a diverse collection,” he says.

In addition to a large and varied selection of paintings and photography, Contessa Galley features sculpture, one of Hartman’s favorite media. Many other galleries avoid sculpture because of its great heft and the difficulty involved in moving pieces.

“A lot of people have more of an imagination for paintings than they do the three-dimensional,” Hartman says. “I just happen to love sculpture, so we have built major sculpture garden collections, both indoor and outdoor collections.”

Beyond what you see in the gallery, Contessa has a much larger catalogue. For instance, the Palm Beach space is just 400-square-foot, but they also have a museum space nearby where they keep major and large-scale works people can view by private invitation.

A FAIR TO REMEMBER

Much of Contessa Gallery’s business takes place at prestigious art fairs around the country.

Recently, Hartman and company held a prominent post at Art Palm Beach, which ran from January 24–28. Next up in the fair circuit is Art Windward in Miami, which goes from February 14–18.

“We generally have the largest presence and footprint at each art fair that we do — the largest booth, the largest exhibition,” Hartman says.

Next is the Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary show, running March 21–24. “And then we will start migrating in May to get open for the Hamptons season,” Hartman says.

Whether it’s in Palm Beach, Southampton,or Cleveland, Contessa Gallery endeavors to help people build collections of real meaning and legacy.

“We’re not a top-down gallery in the sense that this is what you have to have. We will go out and get the best things for you, for what has meaning to you within the guidelines of your budget,” Hartman explains, adding, “We maximize value for clients’ collections. We have the connoisseurship; we have the sourcing; we have the knowledge.”

Connecting with their clientele, guiding them appropriately based on their tastes, their budget and how they view art — whether they’re acquiring it as an investment, for pleasure or both — is key to Hartman and Contessa Gallery’s ethos.

“I know how I’ve approached my collection, and I help other people make decisions that they would make for themselves if they had my time, expertise and knowledge,” he says.

Contessa Gallery is located at 216 Sunset Avenue, Palm Beach and is open Mondays through Saturdays, 11 a.m.–7 p.m., and on Sundays by appointment. For more info, call 216-956-2825 or visit contessagallery.com.

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