Like Charles Saatchi, British collector Frank Cohen was a staunch supporter of the YBAs before falling for the Indian and Chinese contemporary art craze. But next month, the man who describes himself as once being a "compulsive buyer" is opening to the public part of his collection that goes back to his very first purchase in the 1970s: a postcard-sized L.S. Lowry painting.

The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire have invited the self-made Mancunian to present part of his British Modern collection at their Downton Abbey-like home of Chatsworth in the Peak District. "Frank and Cheryl Cohen at Chatsworth" is set to include works by Stanley Spencer, William Scott, and Edward Burra. During a flash visit to London, Cohen explained to BLOUIN ARTINFO why Modern British art is ripe for reappraisal.

With this exhibition of Modern British art, it seems like you are going back to your first love.

I am going back to my first love, yes. I've done all the things in between, and now I've gone back to it because I'm more passionate about the Modern British side of what I've got — and you can hang it at home. Whereas on the contemporary side, a lot of the work is vast — you can't really put it in your home, you have to put it in exhibition spaces. I do that as well in Wolverhampton. That gets it out of my system, but you like some things better than you like others, don't you?

Do you like Modern British more than contemporary art?

Yeah, I grew up with Modern British. It was the only thing I could do at the time, in the 1970s. There was really no contemporary around in the 1970s — or there was, but there were no Damien Hirsts or YBAs; they didn’t come until the 1980s. So basically it was either French impressionists, or Victorian, or Pre-Raphaelites — all old. But you know, it was never me, that. And also, a lot of it was very expensive, in any case. But that [Modern British] was an area that I could collect in.

Do you feel that Modern British artists are underrated now and not appreciated as much as contemporary artists like Hirst?

Yes I do, but that might be changing. The Evill/Frost sale at Sotheby's was the first time in 30, 40, 50 years that a collection of Modern British works as powerful and strong as that had come on the market. Stanley Spencer, William Roberts, Edward Burra, Henry Moore — you name it, there were all in there. The prices just went through the roof. And what amazes me is how many people came out of the woodwork to buy it. It was a turning point, and it put the Modern British market in another division.

Your Modern British work is a part of your collection that you have kept largely to yourself. Your exhibition space in Wolverhampton, Initial Access, is very much focused on contemporary art.

I knew the interest was there but it wasn't exciting enough for a lot of people to do shows of Modern British. It was just things that I loved and I put at home. The idea to show this part of the collection was something that developed when the Duke asked me to do a Modern British show, because Chatsworth lends itself to it. And now the time is perfectly right, after the Evill/Frost sale. There are more and more shows happening with Modern British. The Royal Academy  did a sort of Modern British sculpture exhibition last year, and the Tate has got a show coming up soon of Modern British works. There's going to be a Lucian Freud show anytime now. It's come around again. The timing is just perfect for this sort of thing.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the process of putting this collection together?

My wife and I have collected this for years. My wife's father was an art dealer when I first met her. He was more into the Modern British side of art than contemporary. Contemporary wasn’t around, and he would never know it. It was never a northern thing. In Manchester, where I lived, no one understood contemporary art. And to this day, there are no commercial contemporary art galleries in Manchester. Cornerhouse shows contemporary art works, the Whitworth do a bit, the Manchester City Art Gallery put on some contemporary shows, but there is no one specializing in it. There are no collectors there. If you come to London or if you go to LA, you'll see fantastic collections. If you go to Manchester, the only person who has any contemporary art worth looking at is me. Whether or not it will catch on, god only knows. It hasn’t happened in my lifetime, and whether or not it will happen in the near future, I doubt it very much.

How do you see the role of the collector? You've dedicated yourself exclusively to collecting for the best part of the last 15 years.

I've never really thought of it like that. I just do it because I love it; it's one of those things. I've not done it because I want to put my name in lights, or to be recognized. I'm not interested in the glamor side of it.

Now that the government is trying to increase the number of patrons for the arts and encourage sponsorship, it seems that collectors have an increasingly important role to play.

Occasionally someone asks me to do a little talk about this and that — I've done a lot of those things. And don’t forget I have my own exhibition space, which takes up a lot of my time in Wolverhampton, where I'm actually putting on curated shows.

Your Initial Access exhibition space was launched in 2007. What was the impulse behind it?

You can only hang so much at home, remember. I just kept buying, and buying and buying. Unfortunately, I was a compulsive buyer. I always intended to show it, which is good. Bringing the collection out, letting people see it, is the best part. 90 percent of all the art in the world never gets shown.

You resell works as well, don't you?

I've sold pieces in the past, but not Modern British, only contemporary. These things that I've bought, I've shown, I've nowhere to put them. I go back to the dealers, and say: "look, I don't want this anymore, it's no good to me, do you want them?" Most dealers are happy to take the things back. I get money out of it, they get money out of it, and then I bang the money back into more art.

Do you feel that your taste has changed over the years?

It changes all the time. In my early days, I was very eclectic. I used to go the East End of London, run around, and buy 90 percent of whatever I saw. I never digested it. When I look at it now I think: "I was a bit bloody mad." Now, I'm more controlled. On the Modern British side, nothing has changed. But with the contemporary, there's so much of it, you don't know what your taste is until you see the work.

There was talk of you opening a space in Manchester.

It didn't work out. We had lots of opportunities to do something there, but it never materialized. Now I'm not interested [in opening a space in Manchester] in any way, shape, or form. If I'm going to do anything at all in contemporary, maybe if we can find a space in London, we'll do it in London.