Coll has overseen spaces in both SoHo and Chelsea, featuring an international roster of emerging and established painters and sculptors. Coll brings his taste and experience  as highly respected member of the new York art community to the task of creating a web'site wich reflects contemporary art in all its exciting diversity, from the most abstract to the most representational works of art.

"The distinguish factor of contemporary art, its most salient feature, is its pluralism", Jim Coll states "Unlike in other eras, such as the Abstract Expressionist or Pop periods, when one style dominated, today many different styles and tendencies vie simultaneously for attention. I find this diversity very exciting".

As the exemplary careers of Betty Parsons, Tony Shafrazi, among others who have displayed talent as both artists and art dealers demonstrate, those who have personal experience with the creative process often make the most sensitive and adventurous gallerists. ( Parsons, for example, was the first gallery owner to realize that plain white walls and spare furnishings, rather than velvet walls a plush Victorian decor, were more complementary to contemporary art, starting a trend which persists to this day.)

Having been aware of his work and known him over the course of several years, witnessing first-hand his evolution from a gifted painter to director of Montserrat Gallery— a venue formerly in Soho, now established in new quarters in Chelsea— I am convinced that Jim Coll is destined to distinguish himself in this small, exclusive company of creative art dealers. (One innovation he has already accomplished is to upgrade the presentation of fine art on the Internet to a new level of dignity and taste through the elegant design of his website Arte Contemporáneo.com.)

Coll, who graduated in fine arts from the Facultat de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi, in Barcelona, Spain, first came to my attention in the late 1980s as a painter of floral still life. His paintings, flawlessly executed in the unforgiving medium of watercolor, were remarkable for the manner in which they reinvigorated a time-honored genre, demonstrating that one need not indulge in cheap novelty or forego intimacy in favor of billboard scale to create innovative and immediate works of art. For while the dewy freshness of Coll's aquarelles of delicate buds set against virgin expanses of white paper prompted critics to compare his work to that of the ancient Chinese masters, his pictures also possessed a spatial economy, among other abstract qualities redolent of minimalist aesthetics, which marked them as thoroughly contemporary.

Coll could have devoted a fruitful lifetime to the perfection of such works, and indeed was garnering considerable critical attention for his frequent solo and group exhibitions, when he decided to apply a good deal of his energies to running an art gallery, an endeavor he considers on a par creatively with painting.

In the latter regard, one can only surmise that many of the talented painters and sculptors who exhibit at Montserrat Gallery are initially drawn to him as a dealer because they sense in Coll a kindred spirit who will support and nurture their sensibilities as uncompromisingly as he promotes their commercial interests.

Collectors, too, are drawn to the sense of integrity that he exudes, with his gentlemanly demeanor and a quiet confidence that makes it unnecessary to indulge in "hard-sell" techniques. Coll communicates his confidence in the artists he chooses to represent through the gleam in his eye when he stands with a prospective buyer before the work of those on his gallery roster, rather than through rhetoric or hyperbole. His smile and mannerisms speak volumes about the deliberation that went into the selection process, and collectors tend to trust in the wisdom of his choices, convinced by his sincere commitment that following his recommendations will result in a sound investment, both in terms of the value to accrue and the immediate pleasure of owning a fine work of art.

"Everyone has instincts, but having faith in them is something you have to work for," the aforementioned Betty Parsons once told the famous collector Paul Mellon, when he asked her how she managed so consistently to make such good choices." A good eye is a very mysterious thing; nobody can teach it to you. Ifs a talent you're born with.

When you study the history of the selection of talent, you find not too many people on those pages." In the case of Jim Coll, as in that of Parsons, it seems clear that his background as an artist gives him an edge over many other art dealers when it comes to the selection of talent. And it seems safe to assume that his name, too, belongs on "those pages" to which his worthy predecessor refers.

Ed McCormack

NOTE: Ed McCormack is a writer and critic who, in the early 1970, was one of the original contributing editors of Andy Warhol's Interview magazine. He has written numerous articles on art and popular culture for Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, The New York Daily News, and many other publications. He is presently Managing Editor of the New York based art magazine Gallery & Studio, of which his wife Jeannie McCormack, also a writer, is Editor and Publisher.

New York City, July 20, 2005