A Life Lived with Art: Thomas Olbricht on Collecting

Already a collector from a young age—bringing together objects such as toy cars, match boxes, and stamps since the age of five—school was what first brought Thomas Olbricht to the world of art. His earliest memories take him back to his elementary art classes and an art teacher who fostered in him a dedicated interest in drawing and painting. “At one point, I started painting after artists such as Nolde and Franz Marc. I may have sold a few of my drawings to family members, but in my late teens I realized that they were not good enough to become an artist myself,” Olbricht reminisces. “So, if you can not make art, what do you do? You collect instead.” He left his artistic career behind and followed a path in medicine instead, but a life lived with art has remained with Olbricht ever since. Another fundamental source for his passion for art was found closer to home; his great-uncle Karl Ströher would have a profound impact on Olbricht’s later collecting activities. “My great-uncle Karl Ströher was an art collector, who would show me his extensive collection when visiting his home in Darmstadt,” he shares. His great-uncle was a collector of modern and contemporary art, who became known as an early collector of Pop Art following his acquisition of the Leon Kraushar collection in the late 1960s, an act that deeply impressed Olbricht. “To build a collection of importance, one most importantly needs the passion, fascination, and also the courage to collect as well. This belief was certainly passed along to me.”

Collecting for almost five decades, Olbricht shares that while he has built strong relationships with art dealers, the leading choice and decision of what enters his collection remains with him. “I don’t have advisors in the traditional sense. Having built these relationships overtime, I am of course often informed of available works. And when I am interested in an artwork I ask for their insights. However, I make every final decision about what I acquire,” Olbricht explains. He lets himself be guided by a sense of wonder and fascination, not the objective to “finish” his collection. “There are parts of my collection which I strive to complete, works for which it is possible to establish a comprehensive overview such as editions of graphic work by Gerhard Richter or my stamp collection. However, generally this is not the case. All artworks function individually, I do not strive to acquire something because it is ‘lacking’ in the collection. At the foreground of any acquisition is passion,” explains Olbricht. “Do I ‘need’ to own some of the works in my collection? No. However, I love looking at them and engaging with them, and that is key.” Olbricht also considers himself a “dynamic” collector who keeps moving—which means for his collection that not every acquisition remains. “This is both my passion and my suffering,” Olbricht notes. “Not all artworks have stayed in my collection, which sometimes hurts, but if I would have kept everything, I could not continue collecting this way. And I just cannot give that up.”

Passion and Mission

Core to Olbricht’s activities as a collector is sharing his passion for art with others, which he has done for over three decades. “In the 1990s, I temporarily ran a small gallery in Essen, which was born out of the conviction to share my fascination with art. I wanted to share with others this feeling of what it means to engage with art and even acquire art, and we set up several exciting exhibitions with artists suchas Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, and the Chapmans.” Ever since, Olbricht has continued to open his collection to the public, leading to the creation of the Olbricht Foundation in 2010. Founded by Olbricht and his wife Claudia, the foundation aims to promote and awaken a public interest in art, particularly contemporary art. This culminated in a dedicated collection and exhibition space in Berlin from 2010 to 2020, the me Collectors Room Berlin. “I started the Collectors Room with the same intention as I did the gallery in the ’90s: I wanted to connect people to art, let them engage with works, and foster a fascination with art. I never mind if people do not like what I collect, as long as it instigates a conversation,” shares Olbricht, highlighting the philosophy behind the collection: a strong understanding of art’s ability to amaze and evoke new ways of looking at the world. Over its decade-long existence, the me Collectors Room staged over 42 exhibitions and presented a permanent display of Wunderkammer objects. One of the foundation’s core principles of awakening public interest in art extends, in particular, to encouraging playful engagement with art for children and teenagers—a cause dear to Olbricht’s heart. The me Collectors Room included an extensive educational program: “At its height, we collaborated with five local schools who would visit us and engage with our educational program, as the schools themselves did not have the opportunities to do so,” explains Olbricht. The collector additionally developed the idea of a “mobile Wunderkammer,” which led to the Wunderkammer Ship, a mobile museum which traveled the waterways of Berlin and Brandenburg and provided a multidisciplinary educational program through the presentation of historical objects from Olbricht’s collection.

Following the closure of the Berlin exhibition space, part of Olbricht’s collection of Wunderkammer objects is now on long-term loan at Museum Folkwang in Essen. “Since my time as a student, Essen has been my hometown. I know the museum’s collection through and through. It brings me much pleasure to be able to share my collection in this way, and I really enjoy whenever I am at the museum myself, to be able to share insights and stories about the artworks with visitors,” says Olbricht. The foundation also supports the museum’s artist-in-residence program, Neue Folkwang Residence, which awards two places annually to international artists for a period of five months, and remains dedicated to stimulating children’s engagement with art through support of two local schools. Olbricht also continues to make his collection publicly accessible through exhibitions. In this he is supported by Sarah Sonderkamp, curator of the Olbricht Collection, who oversees the documentation and international loan program of works from the collection—most recently the exhibition Perfect Match. Selected Kunstkammer objects from the Olbricht Collection and the MAKK at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Cologne, in which selected Wunderkammer objects from Olbricht’s collection are brought together with the museum’s Wunderkammer collection from March 22 through September 22, 2024. Now in his 70s, Olbricht aims for his collection to slowly downsize but remain high in quality and importance. To new collectors looking to find their path in the art market, he would advise to take their time to “wonder, discover, comprehend, and then acquire.” “Passion always suggests that if you don’t follow through immediately, you will never be able to get a particular work again. Which might be the case,” notes Olbricht, “But other works will come. I would deem it most important to take your time, look at and engage with a wide variety of art, and invest in learning about what you are looking at. And, taking this as your basis, find that which brings you joy.”

Copyright on works of visual artists affiliated to a CISAC organization has been arranged with Pictoright in Amsterdam. © c/o Pictoright Amsterdam 2024.