Priscilla Vail Caldwell

NEW YORK—Priscilla Vail Caldwell is vice president of American paintings at the prestigious Madison Avenue gallery, James Graham & Sons. She says, “Pretty much every thing I own is hanging in my house and in almost every case I know the artists very well—so I relate to the work in a very personal way.”

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My First Acquisition:

The first serious purchase I made was many years ago when I was in graduate school at Williams College. I curated a show of the work of recent alumni, and one of the painters in the exhibition was Saxton Freymann—now famous for How Are You Peeling—the children’s books that feature fruit and vegetables he has carved to resemble humans and animals. I still own the painting which is quite beautiful and figurative. I can’t remember what I paid for it—probably about $2,000, which seemed like a monumental price at the time.

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My Most Recent Acquisition:

My most recent purchase was a pair of paintings by Nancy Lorenz (an artist we represent at James Graham & Sons) from her most recent show at the gallery. It is an abstraction, but based on a drawing she made of the Tuileries Fountains in Paris, a city that she visits regularly. I own the drawing as well. They were priced in the show at $15,000.