Take a Peek Inside Drew Barrymore’s Art Collection

We spotted her at the Armory Show this weekend and got curious.

Will Kopelman and Drew Barrymore. Photo: Clint Spaulding/Patrick McMullan.

We know, we know: we said there’d be no more celebrities to spot after the Armory Show VIP previews ended, but it turns out, we were wrong. Over the weekend, actress Drew Barrymore, filmmaker George Lucas, and actor Dustin Hoffman showed up at the fair. We hear Barrymore even made a purchase of a small needlepoint work around 5 pm on Sunday at the booth shared by London gallery Bruce Haines and Vienna-based Galerie Andreas Huber.

This got us to wondering, what’s in her collection? It turns out, her collection has everything from California pop art to a massive reproduction of John Singer Sargent’s El Jaleo.

Barrymore and her husband, fellow actor and art adviser Will Kopelman, have been avid collectors for a while, though in a 2014 interview with New York magazine’s art blog Seen, Barrymore concedes that “he has the art collection.” Give yourself more credit, Drew!

Raymond Pettibon, Untitled (How Comes it so Great a Silence...), from Plots on Loan I (2000). Photo: Leslie Sacks Gallery/artnet. (Not in Barrymore's collection.)

Raymond Pettibon, Untitled (How Comes it so Great a Silence…), from Plots on Loan I (2000).
Photo: Leslie Sacks Gallery/artnet.
(Not in Barrymore’s collection.)

However, in the same interview, she also shows off her contemporary art prowess, dropping names like John Baldessari and Paymond Pettibon.

“I just pulled out his John Baldessari and I was like, “Can we put this next to the Raymond Pettibon, next to [an] old, vintage Karl Lagerfeld photograph?” And I was like, “I’m guessing my three-dollar, piece-of-shit, vintagelike canvas that I bought in Paris that I thought was so chic and so important because it meant so much to me and it looks like junk next to his work and it’s in my closet now,” she said.

Andy Warhol soup cans. Photo: PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images) (Not in Barrymore's collection.)

Andy Warhol soup cans.
Photo: PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images)
(Not in Barrymore’s collection.)

According to Architectural Digest, the pair also own an Ed Ruscha work bearing the words “Killer Instinct.” The artist himself explained the suitability of the work for the couple. “Will thinks and acts like a true gentleman,” said Ruscha, “but, as his wife says, he has a killer instinct.”

The magazine also notes that the pair own an Andy Warhol soup can.

Jenny Holzer, Protect Me From What I Want (video still). Photo: Youtube. (Not in Barrymore's collection.)

Jenny Holzer, Protect Me From What I Want (video still).
Photo: Youtube.
(Not in Barrymore’s collection.)

Kopelman seems to have an affinity for word art: a 2012 New York Post write-up about him states that he kept a Jenny Holzer painting that read “Protect me from what I want” above his bed in his Los Angeles bachelor pad. The slogan has been used by Holzer on a variety of artworks and projects, including on a massive electronic billboard hung above Times Square.

No word on where the painting lives now that he’s married to Barrymore.

Brigitte Waldach, Deutscher Herbst II (diptych). Photo: Brigitte Waldach. (Not in Barrymore's collection.)

Brigitte Waldach, Deutscher Herbst II (diptych).
Photo: Brigitte Waldach.
(Not in Barrymore’s collection.)

Barrymore also confesses in the New York interview to spending a pretty penny on a red-and-white piece by German artist Brigitte Waldach.

John SInger Sargent, El Jaleo

John Singer Sargent, El Jaleo (1882). Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

In an interview with My Domaine, Barrymore’s husband reveals that the couple own a full-scale reproduction of John Singer Sargent’s 1882 masterpiece El Jaleo. An unusual pick to be sure, especially considering their custom-made version also doubles as a magnetic bulletin board.

It’s worth noting that her Armory Show outing isn’t Barrymore’s first. She’s been spotted amidst art worlders at Gagosian openings, the annual LACMA Art + Film gala, and even the storied Jeff Koons for Project Perpetual Birkin bag auction, for which the artist “transformed” several celebrity-owned handbags into readymades.


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