E ach year, Sotheby’s is thrilled to host a benefit auction on behalf of the Norton Museum of Art, one of the Southeast’s preeminent cultural institutions. The 2024 Gala Auction, on offer now through 5 February, features work by 45 artists, including Ghada Amer, Louise Nevelson, Sol LeWitt, Jesse Mockrin and more. We checked in with just four of these remarkable artists and asked them to share their thoughts on an artist’s responsibility, how collectors can support artists and more.
James Prosek

If you could own just one work of art, what would it be and why?
A watercolor by Winslow Homer of a trout or any of his Adirondack watercolors. I think more than any other paintings these stirred my soul in my youth; I can’t explain the impact they had on me. The atmosphere they create is more than any I’ve experienced in nature. I would love to have one in my home to look at every day!
What fuels you in the studio?
I just love to make things. When I’m making things I’m relatively happy … or my body is calmed. I also like to do research on topics related to writing projects and my art (which I see as part of the same practice). I love to learn. Right now I’m fascinated by the human relationship to fire. How humans used fire to burn the land and create grasslands for grazing animals. I also love color and to paint with color.
What is an artist’s greatest responsibility?
I think because artists spend time pushing the limits of what is possible – materially and idealistically – there is a responsibility to test boundaries, to instigate and even irritate the mind, to provoke thought. To trespass.
What is the most memorable experience you’ve had at a museum?
In 2020, just before the pandemic, I installed an exhibition at the Yale University Art Gallery combining objects from the gallery and the Peabody Museum of Natural History on campus. Over two years, I became very intimate with the collections and was able to do things like juxtapose the skull of a Torosaurus dinosaur with a sculpture by Barbara Hepworth in spaces created by one of my favorite architects, Louis Kahn. It was just a sublime opportunity I will never forget.
What art will people be talking about next year?
Oh gosh. Personally I hope that work related to our environment will gain more prominence in conversation and in museums. Ecosystems are unraveling due to a host of factors, and as we know this will have a wholesale and significant impact on all cultures of the world.
How can collectors best support artists?
Collectors can support artists by buying their work, keeping it, enjoying it and gifting pieces now and then to museums. By buying work by artists, collectors enable those artists to make more work – to support themselves and their families and have careers as creative people. Collectors are absolutely essential in the ecosystem of art-making.
Robert Peterson
If you could own just one work of art, what would it be and why?
Blood (Donald Formey) by Barkley Hendricks. This was the first piece of his that someone introduced me to about seven years ago and it made me fall in love with his work.
What fuels you in the studio?
My goals fuel me each time I walk into the studio. I want to be great. I want to create works of art that speak to me and for me to those that see it.
What is an artist’s greatest responsibility?
An artist’s greatest responsibility is to create works they’re passionate about rather than just creating for likes, shares or money.
What is the most memorable experience you’ve had at a museum?
My oldest son joined the US Army in 2020. Before he left for basic training, he and I took a guys trip to Tulsa to have lunch and visit the Philbrook Museum. It was there that he saw a Kehinde Wiley in person for the first time. Watching him look at that painting reminded me of my son when he was a little kid all over again. He was so amazed. It was a beautiful moment I’ll always remember.
What art will people be talking about next year?
I hope mine lol.
How can collectors best support artists?
I believe that buying work from the artist and sharing it with their friends, family and other art lovers is huge. Word of mouth, both in person and through social media, is a great tool.
Rob Wynne

If you could own just one work of art – any work! – what would it be and why?
Ceci n’est pas une pipe by René Magritte, also known as The Treachery of Images – meaning, the thing itself is not the thing itself. I find the contradiction of seeing the image and being told it is not the image you are seeing subversively elegiac.
What fuels you in the studio?
Working.
What is an artist’s greatest responsibility?
Honesty.
What is the most memorable experience you’ve had at a museum?
When I first saw R. MUTT [“Fountain”] by Marcel Duchamp at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
What art will people be talking about next year?
Likely work that addresses global political issues, as well as diversity issues.
How can collectors best support artists?
Attend their exhibitions, follow their development and collect their work.
Paola Pivi

If you could own just one work of art, what would it be and why?
I would like to own Fountain by Duchamp. Why? Because I find it genius, and I feel like it precipitated contemporary art as we know it.
What fuels you in the studio?
It is like an avalanche. It intrinsically has that power to proceed and enlarge.
What is an artist’s greatest responsibility?
The artist’s responsibility is to make art. Or to try to make Art with a capital A – which is something quite rare and very difficult to achieve. And desperately needed by humankind to develop their power of thought and freedom of thought.
What is the most memorable experience you’ve had at a museum?
The best experience when witnessing art – and that might happen in a museum or in public – is when, after seeing the show, I clearly feel that my ability of perception is increased. For example, after spending a day in Münster in the 90s, my way of looking at the world reached a completely different level. That is the best experience of art, which often can happen in a museum too.
What art will people be talking about next year?
I really don’t know. I am totally interested in what people talk about, but I cannot always constantly follow what they talk about, as it is not always relevant for me.
How can collectors best support artists?
Collectors are the fuel of art. Any collector who buys any artwork at any level – even a student’s first work for a small amount of money – is supporting art-making in the world. When you have the urge to buy an artwork – buy it. That contribution is what makes it possible for all of us artists to continue to make art, and that is amazing.