\t\t\t\t\t![\"Glenn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/26_05_09_0081-scaled.jpg\")
Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman in their Hamptons home with (on the wall) Derek Fordjour\u2019s Progenitor, 2022, and (on white table) Roy Lichtenstein\u2019s Maquette for Three Brushstrokes, 1984 (fabricated 2005). All photography by Jessica Dalene.<\/p>\n
On an overcast afternoon in Sagaponack, the famously down-to-earth investor and philanthropist Glenn Fuhrman is contemplating the impending loss of his privacy. As the founder of the FLAG Art Foundation<\/a>, a board member at MoMA, and president of trustees at the American branch of the Tate, he and his wife, Amanda, a former lawyer, are a study in 21st-century patronage. They\u2019ve donated monumental sculptures to their alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, including an edition of Simone Leigh<\/a>\u2018s Brick House (commissioned for New York\u2019s inaugural High Line plinth, the first edition of which resides on the couple\u2019s Hamptons property).<\/p>\n After a decade and a half of marriage, their passions extend far beyond the art world: They sponsor a free Wi-Fi network covering 95 blocks in Harlem, as well as the annual FLAG Award for New York\u2019s public school teachers. Yet, through it all, they\u2019ve kept the personal private.<\/p>\n There is no denying, however, that the recent publication of a more-than-300-page volume by Phaidon, Collecting Contemporaries: The Fuhrman Collection<\/a>, opens the book on their lives. For the first time, the couple\u2019s homes are on view\u2014including an intimate encounter with the tenderly curated Hamptons artworks they share with their three young children.<\/p>\n Their artist roster is a who\u2019s who of the last 25 years, rating a private museum or a sculpture park: Jeff Koons, Derrick Adams, Cecily Brown<\/a>, Jim Hodges, and on and on it goes. A massive white enamel Ugo Rondinone tree grounds the inner courtyard of their Sagaponack abode. Sam Gilliam works on paper flank an expansive, skylit basement corridor. A site-specific Andy Goldsworthy snakes across the entryway, so every car must drive over it.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things that appealed to us about this property from the very beginning was that there is a big opportunity for outdoor sculpture,\u201d says Fuhrman, even if they didn\u2019t have any such work at the time. The couple subsequently discovered that their area has a 20-foot height limit for outdoor artwork. Luckily, their silvery, leafless Roxy Paine met the zoning requirements, as did an Elmgreen & Dragset lifeguard. Unfortunately, a giant Roy Lichtenstein piece did not and now resides as a long-term loan in front of the Parrish Art Museum.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m still uncomfortable about it. It\u2019s definitely easier to be private.\u201d \u2014Glenn Fuhrman<\/p>\n Fuhrman\u2019s collecting journey began at 25, during his early days at Goldman Sachs, when he cold-called the photographer Arnold Newman and asked for a studio visit. \u201cI\u2019m over 60 now, and I\u2019ve been collecting for almost 40 years,\u201d explains Fuhrman, who fell for art history in his first semester as a Penn undergrad. Why share it now? \u201cI recently had the realization that I\u2019ve not yet sold anything. But as I get older, it\u2019s more likely that some things will now start to get sold or given away to museums,\u201d he answers. \u201cThis is probably the peak collection right now and the moment to document it.\u201d<\/p>\n Ensconced in his lush orange-walled study, under a pantsless Anna Weyant sexpot, he\u2019s feeling introspective. \u201cI\u2019m aware that there are a lot of collectors for whom their book is their Sotheby\u2019s or Christie\u2019s catalogue when their children sell their art after they\u2019ve passed away,\u201d Fuhrman tells me. \u201cWe had this unsolicited inquiry from Phaidon, saying, \u2018We would love to do a book about your collection.\u2019 I\u2019m still uncomfortable about it. It\u2019s definitely easier to be private.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the years, first marriage, then parenthood, shifted his aesthetic proclivities. \u201cMy own taste has matured as I have matured,\u201d he says. \u201cAs a couple, some of that maturing happens together.\u201d For example, \u201cWhen I was younger and single, I had an inclination to buy more nude women than I did later\u2026 of course, once you have children and young girls, it just also changes your perspective on how all of that works.\u201d While Amanda has never vetoed a purchase, he explains with a laugh, she might demur with, \u201cThis is a good one for your office.\u201d<\/p>\n More than any other guiding principle, close-knit artist relationships anchor the Fuhrmans\u2019 philosophy. \u201cThe book is called Collecting Contemporaries because I really was collecting my contemporaries, going to galleries every Saturday or whenever I had free time, collecting artists that were making work at that time,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is probably the peak collection right now and the moment to document it.\u201d \u2014Glenn Fuhrman<\/p>\n One of those enduring friendships is currently on display at the Parrish through July 19 in \u201cEllsworth Kelly: Eight Decades<\/a>,\u201d the first in a curatorial collaboration between the museum and the FLAG Art Foundation; the two will mount a trio of shows annually across adjoining gallery spaces, through 2030.<\/p>\n \u201cAmanda and I started this really nice cadence of going up to Ellsworth and his husband Jack Shear\u2019s home every summer,\u201d recalls Fuhrman. The pair would drive from the Hamptons to the Hudson Valley, where Shear cooked them lunch. \u201cWe would sit in a beautiful, little dining room and have a bottle of wine,\u201d Fuhrman continues. \u201cThen, we would go from the house to the studio, and look at what was on the wall. It was really something we looked forward to every year.\u201d<\/p>\n He describes how, in the early days of their marriage, \u201cAmanda and I were just having a good time with different artists.\u201d The new book is as much an exquisite love letter to contemporary art as to their partnership and the legacy they\u2019ll inevitably leave behind one day.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n More of our favorite stories from CULTURED<\/p>\n At 101, the Chinese American Artist Ce Roser Is Finally Getting Her Big Break<\/a><\/p>\n Yes, Kane Parsons Directed \u2018Backrooms.\u2019 Here\u2019s How It All Went Down.<\/a><\/p>\n The Gayest Places in New York, According to Queer Culturati<\/a><\/p>\n Director Boots Riley and George Clinton Disagree About the Future of A.I.<\/a><\/p>\n The 8 Must-See Movies at Tribeca This June, According to the Ultimate Insider<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Roy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/26_05_09_0312-scaled.jpg\")
Roy Lichtenstein, House III, 1997.<\/p>\n![\"Amoako](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/26_04_06_0179-scaled.jpg\")
Amoako Boafo, Sunflower Field, 2022.<\/p>\n![\"Simone](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/26_05_09_0306-scaled.jpg\")
Simone Leigh, Brick House, 2019.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/26_05_09_0317-scaled.jpg\")
Andy Goldsworthy, Long Island Road Line, 2024.<\/p>\n![\"Glenn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/26_05_09_0009-scaled.jpg\")
Left: Jammie Holmes, Golden Hours of a Man, 2022; right: Peter Doig, Lion in the Road (Sailors), 2019.<\/p>\n