Whether in New York, Paris, London, or elsewhere, many of us have had the privilege of visiting impeccably designed art galleries and marveling at their exhibitions.

How do art dealers chose which artists to work with? What motivates and inspires them? The inner workings of a gallery and their proximity to creative genius can often feel mysterious.

Even less accessible are the private homes of art dealers. How do the people who have devoted their lives to artists live with art themselves and furnish their personal spaces?

Thanks to renowned collector Tiqui Atencio Demirdjian, we can now find out. The collector invites us to take a peek inside the private homes of the likes of David Zwirner, Marian Goodman, and Almine Rech, to name just a few. Her beautiful new book, For Art’s Sake, developed in collaboration with photographer Jean-François Jaussaud, is an inspiration and an ode to the passion of collecting art held by those who foster the practice for others.

How did the author herself start collecting? ”As a young girl, I had two ambitions: one was being an artist and the other, a poet,” she revealed to me. “After a few years of study, I realized I was meant to live with art but not create it, and ended up collecting art and writing books about living with art. Art has given me a lifelong purpose. It has filled my life with meaning in so many different ways. It has broadened my horizons and given me many good places and emotional experiences. It has introduced me to a very exciting world.”

Below, in excerpts from For Art’s Sake, some of the world’s most important gallerists reveal how they live with art at home and how it has impacted their lives.

Paula Cooper

What motivates me is living with art each day—being intimate with it… you can always discover new things. By moving things, changing their relationship to another work of art, you will see things differently. And that’s why you never get tired of art.

Barbara Gladstone

I love to see art in a home—it’s so different than in a gallery. It’s also good to live with things, because it is only over a period of time that you learn what it is that compels you to own it and why.

Marian Goodman

I like to cook and I thought if I’m going to have a party and friends over, I should really do it right. I love to invite not only collectors, but also people from the other side of the art world, like those who work in museums. It is lovely to see this interesting mix of friends around the sofa just hanging out and enjoying the conversation after eating, with these amazing views of the city. That gives me great pleasure.

Dominique Lévy

An Urs Fischer lamppost sculpture and silkscreen painting in the collection of Dominique Lévy. Photo: Jean-François Jaussaud.

So for me home is a convivial place, where you have space for aloneness and for togetherness. And art is at the core of everything here and in my other homes, because it is my life. I am lucky and privileged to live with art in this way, because I really believe that by changing people’s minds and hearts, art has the capacity to change the world.

Almine Rech

We rarely move the Picassos because we want to live with them. But now and then, we change the display, and rehang two or three of the other things. But the contemporary pieces always have to work with the Picassos.

Thaddaeus Ropac

A Georg Baselitz sculpture and oil painting and a Tom Sachs skull sculpture in the collection of Thaddaeus Ropac. Photo: Jean-François Jaussaud.

I always felt that it was a privilege to collect art, to get close to the process and go into the universe of an artist… In the last 20 years, I have felt that the collection needs to be meaningful and is not just something that I put on the walls for my own pleasure. I still buy things that I love and want to live with, but now I do so with the hope that one day they will end up in a museum.

Christophe Van de Weghe

We used to have a loft that we sold in 2007… we knew that we wanted to buy a townhouse because we hoped to have kids. Suddenly we were able to afford this. But it was just a facade, nothing behind it. There was a big hole in the ground instead of a house. I didn’t really have the money to build when we bought it, but then I had a good year and could afford the construction.

Iwan and Manuela Wirth

For us, there’s no separation between life and art. It’s a 24-hour per day business, and we never do holidays the way other people do. It’s simply an approach to life and a curiosity about the world. I hate being a tourist anyway.

David Zwirner

I know almost all the artists that made the art in the house. There is a personal history, not just with the makers, but also with the specific works, especially if they came out of exhibitions that I have organized. So it feels very familiar. It’s like living with an extended circle of friends, and that’s very pleasurable.

For Art’s Sake: Inside the Homes of Dealers is available now from Rizzoli.