Eric Cohler

Interior designer Eric Cohler is acclaimed for his distinctive fusion of classic and contemporary elements, inspired by his background in historic preservation, art history, and design.

Following the successful two-part online auctions for his Interiors & Fine Art and Photographs collection, Eric talks to us about his collecting journey, his obsession with chairs, and his tips for new collectors.

I started collecting at seventeen. I bought an American Luminist Hudson River painting that spoke to me from a dealer, using money that I saved up from summer jobs over several years.

My grandfather had set aside $100 every year for me until I was 18 years old, and I used this money to make my first serious purchase of a French Impressionist work. With the money I earned by working on campus during college, I continued collecting and began buying and selling in different areas of painting, photography, and decorative arts. The more I bought and sold, the more focused my art and design collection became.

I love photography for its immediacy and accessibility as photographs capture a moment in time forever. One looks at people’s lives and imagines how they lived and what they saw. I’m particularly passionate about portraiture and photographs of architecture, landscape and climate change.

My favourite periods of photography start from about 1920 – with the Bright Young Things in England and their equivalent across the Atlantic – right up to the mid-1970s with works by Slim Aarons, Cindy Sherman and Tina Barney.

I collect many things – but I’m obsessed with chairs. They’re the first pieces I bought after fine art and photography. I kept thinking to myself: who sat in this chair before me, who will sit in this chair in the future? I have chairs from the 17th century to the present day. All are examples of – what I believe to be – the best of the best during a certain epoch; for me chairs are pure sculpture.

As an interior designer, the first things I consider when designing a space are its layout and light exposure. How will the room be used? How much sunlight will it have during the day? Is there a view? My purpose is to help clients live their best life, even if they can’t articulate the feeling as it relates to interiors. My guiding principle is that for a room to be successful it must create an experience for its occupants at once visceral yet comforting.

What advice would I give someone starting their own collection? Only purchase something because it speaks to you and sparks joy. Buy the best that you can afford within your budget, and don’t make a purchase because you think it will increase in value. I own works that have appreciated dramatically and others that are now worth much less than what I paid for them. But they were all bought for my own pleasure by taking a fearless plunge and I don’t regret any of them.

Another tip: find a starting point. For me, photography was the entrance into building my art collection.

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