Delivery trucks rumble up to seaside penthouses and contemporary riverfront residences weighted down with carefully wrapped and crated treasures—surrealist scenes by Salvador Dalí, storied portraits from Alex Katz and other masterworks that rival panoramic Gulf views.
Southwest Florida, with its just-close-enough proximity to Miami, wealth of cultural institutions and influx of high-value property investments, attracts the kind of fine art collectors who don’t advertise. Some pursue collecting as an investment, snapping up works by world-famous names as assets that appreciate steadily. Others began small, with a single obsession-worthy piece or an artist whose studio they visited, and got hooked. Most move quietly, working primarily with private art dealers, auction houses and out-of-state galleries to fill their walls with museum-quality art.
What’s sometimes missing in that model is face-to-face connection, a personal relationship with the dealer, the ability to browse and interrogate the provenance of a potential purchase without an appointment and a plane ticket. But in the last year, two local art dealers—Sallie Hirshberg and Robert Casterline—have supplemented their private practices with public-facing, brick-and-mortar galleries that provide new and returning clients with a physical space to match their discerning tastes.
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Photography by Christina Bankson
new art galleries and dealers fort myers naples casterline
Fine art dealer Robert Casterline hangs contemporary pieces from big names such as Jim Dine and David Hockney, with prices listed to open a transparent dialogue with collectors at his Naples-based Casterline Gallery.
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Photography by Christina Bankson
new art galleries and dealers fort myers naples sh modern gallery wall
Casterline Gallery, on Fifth Avenue South in Naples, is the product of some six years of planning. “Being local was my driving force,” Robert says. “I felt like art collectors [in Naples] had limited options for learning and collecting investment-grade artwork. There has always been an educated, wealthy clientele here.” The Pennsylvania native spent much of his adult life splitting time between Aspen, Colorado, where his first gallery is located, and Naples, where he raised his children. Last March, Robert opened his airy space next door to the Porsche Studio Naples design-inspired cafe and filled his walls with work from investment-worthy artists rarely found in a city of Naples’ size, like Jim Dine and David Hockney.
The bulk of Robert’s inventory leans contemporary, but he maintains diverse contacts to appeal to the region’s collecting tastes. “Most of my clients have individual interests,” he says. “Even Western and Native American art collectors are here in Florida.” He keeps a close eye on the market, watching what artist names are rising in value and jet setting around the world to track them down before they reach their peak. “I was trying to sell Cy Twombly drawings when Aspen still wanted paintings of buffalo,” he laughs. He regularly flies to Chicago, London and Switzerland to guide clients through art fairs, or drives across Alligator Alley for fairs in Palm Beach and Miami. “Art’s an education where you can go to events all over the world,” he says. “It’s a lifestyle.”
Photography by Christina Bankson
new art galleries and dealers fort myers naples sh modern gallery wall
When a visitor comes through the door, Robert doesn’t just give them a quick walk-through. He invites a conversation, curious about their background and what makes them tick. He explains the artist’s technique and inspiration, and illuminates how the piece arrived at its current price. “I get just as excited selling something for $3,000 as $3 million,” Robert says. “It’s all about the clients.” He gestures toward an Alex Katz painting, a portrait of the artist’s wife, Ada, awash in the artist’s trademark pale hues and flattened expanses of shape. Though most high-end galleries offer prices on request, he keeps the prices on the placard. “It elicits more questions,” he says. He describes himself as ‘an actuary,’ constantly crunching numbers to assess risk or profitability. “It’s not like the stock market, where you can buy and sell immediately,” he explains. “It’s a long game with art sales.”
Photography by Christina Bankson
new art galleries and dealers fort myers naples sh modern sallie hirshberg
At SH Modern Art, Sallie Hirshberg welcomes walk-ins and longtime clients to peruse works by modern masters Matisse, Chagall, Warhol and Dalí. Her years at Fidelity Investments and Galerie d’Orsay shape her scholarly approach.
On the other side of the region, SH Modern Art fills the gap for Fort Myers collectors. Sallie has been in the art advisory world for more than 30 years, first at a Fidelity Investments subsidiary, then from her Boston hot spot, Galerie d’Orsay, and, since 2014, from a private showroom in Fort Myers. “We’ve seen a real uptick in local clients requesting gallery appointments,” Sallie says. “Many are rebuilding on the river, creating beautiful modern homes and looking to make meaningful investments in art. At the same time, we’re welcoming new clients relocating to Naples and settling into the area’s growing number of new developments.” SH Modern Art, launched in Fort Myers last autumn, allows her to connect and form relationships with this influx of new collectors and locals with a renewed interest more organically.
The gallery—tucked off of College Parkway—centers on works on paper and canvas by masters of the modernist and pop art movements, including Matisse, Chagall, Warhol and Dalí, alongside select sculptural, contemporary and local pieces. Here, Sallie leads with a scholarly approach, guiding walk-ins through the history and cultural significance of the displayed works while mentally scrolling through her database of off-site pieces that may be of interest. “We recently had a local client visit the showroom who had always dreamed of owning a Chagall,” Sallie says. “They left with a beautiful, hand-signed, limited-edition work. Some clients arrive specifically seeking masterworks, while others fall in love with a piece first and then discover the artist behind it.” Early in her career, she cultivated a longstanding relationship with Christine Argillet, whose father, Pierre, was a pivotal publisher, collector and friend of Salvador Dalí.
Photography by Christina Bankson
new art galleries and dealers fort myers naples sh modern
A big draw for brick-and-mortar art galleries is the relationships built. Sallie verifies the source of every artwork she sells, fostering long-term trust. “It’s really important that all the art is as it should be,” she says.
“All our Dalí etchings come with certificates of authenticity,” Sallie says. With an art history education and ties to museums and curators, she leans heavily on academic connections and credentials to source and verify her inventory; the notoriously fraught process often borders on detective work. She recalls sourcing a Rembrandt etching for a client years ago that, after some due diligence, was determined to have been made by a student of the famed master, not the artist. This transparency is critical to maintaining long-term relationships and trust. “It’s essential that each work can be verified in the artist’s catalogue raisonné, when available,” Sallie says. “When provenance is accessible, we share it, verify the work’s condition, and make sure everything is exactly as it should be,” she says.
At SH Modern and Casterline, actions speak louder than words. Clients who check in like family, scrupulous research and analysis, and a personal approach that’s counterintuitive to what most people would expect from upper-echelon galleries underpin an ethos and reputation built on unshakeable, proven trust. But they also can’t deny the heart of what draws audiences to an image—and what so captivated Robert as a young tour guide. As he succinctly puts it: “We want collectors to actually like the artwork.”
Photography by Christina Bankson