What Photographer Danielle Levitt Collects

In honor of Christie's sale of Diane Arbus' work, we asked photographer Danielle Levitt, celebrated for her own arresting portraiture of teens, skaters, athletes and celebrities for Arena Homme +, GQ, The New York Times Magazine and others, to share her story about collecting. What Levitt revealed: it can be less calculated—even for connoisseurs-- than you may think.   

Her number one piece of advise is to fall in love. Collecting isn’t an exact science. Levitt, who collects the work of David Armstrong and Ryan McGinley, says,“I was deciding between two pictures by two different artists when I bought my first McGinley. I only had the budget for one and I went with Ryan’s picture because I was so excited by him as an artist. I knew he was going to grow and I wanted to be a part of that. I have had the same experience with Alec Soth.”