Philip Slein has been a mainstay in the St. Louis art scene since he first opened his namesake Philip Slein Gallery downtown, in 2003. In 2012, he moved the gallery to its current location, in the Central West End, where it features a rotating roster of painters working in a variety of styles who have achieved regional and international reputations.
Although his gallery is minimalist in its aesthetic, at home Slein is a self-described maximalist. He recently moved from a downtown loft to an Olivette ranch house, which he’s filled with beloved pieces, from paintings to photos, sculptures, and clocks.
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“I have work hanging that is actually touching each other. It’s full because I’m not really decorating with the art; I’m living with it and I’m collecting it and I want to be able to see as much of it as possible,” he says. “I like a lot of visual stimulation, so I don’t have a problem living with a lot of things. It is important for me to put the things in the most aesthetically pleasing environment possible, because objects will speak to each other and I like to mix things up. I have paintings from the 16th century up to the 21st century, and they hang next to each other and dialogue with each other.”
When it comes to collecting and buying art, Slein says, people often come into the gallery and say, “I’d love to buy a painting, but I don’t have any wall space.” He says this is the wrong approach: “If you see a great painting, you’re not going to pass it by just because you don’t have a wall; that seems so limiting to your collecting. For me, collecting is really a knowledge quest, because you learn so much.”
We asked Slein to share five favorite pieces from his home collection.
SELECTED WORKS
1 “Hot Shot Eastbound,” photographed August 2, 1956, in Iaeger, West Virginia, by O. Winston Link
“This is one of Link’s most famous works, depicting the last days of the steam locomotive and vanishing small-town America. The thundering Mallet [named for its inventor, Swiss engineer Anatole Mallet], hurtling toward the margins of the picture and thus metaphorically into history, is a Norfolk & Western 2-6-6-4. Norfolk & Western was the last major American railroad to use steam engines in the U.S.A., only retiring the mighty behemoths in 1960. I love everything about this photograph but especially that the snuggling couple in the foreground is in Link’s very own 1952 Buick convertible.”
2 French mystery clock, 1875, by André Guilmet
“I was lucky to discover this very rare clock in an estate sale in an old St. Louis home. My favorite things about it are the seemingly magic ways in which it works and the superb engineering and craftsmanship that went into making it. This clock was made in 1875, when magic was all the rage in French high society. It has a very technical and unusual clock movement. Few people in the world can work on these timepieces. I was lucky that a brilliant clock man named Les McAlister, from St. Charles, was able, with great effort, to completely restore the movement and magic to this historic clock.”
3 “Entry Interior of the Sala di Apollo in the Pitti Palace,” 1925, oil on canvas, by Mario Romani
“I love paintings of paintings and museums. Don’t you just love to be in a museum gallery all alone, especially when a melancholy afternoon light is gently filtering in through an ancient Italian window? There’s sense of quiet contemplation when you’re in these spaces. When I got this painting, it was very dirty. I know the esteemed painting conservator Paul Haner, the longtime conservator at the Saint Louis Art Museum. He is kind of a legend in his field, and he was able to clean it. He revealed so much. In the fresco in the ceiling, you couldn’t see any of that.”
4 “Hi-Fi Fo-Fum,” 2020, acrylic and spray on canvas, by Katherine Bernhardt
“Katherine Bernhardt is one of the hottest artists going today, and she’s from St. Louis. When I first opened the gallery, the Bernhardt sisters would come in with their dad, and they were really friendly. During the pandemic, both sisters moved back to St. Louis, and one day Katherine came into the gallery after 20 years. She likes to collect things and is interested in pop culture, so I had her down to my loft, which was packed with stuff. She saw my Hi-Fi Fo-Fum sign [from the former Hi-Fi Fo-Fum audio equipment store in Richmond Heights] and just loved this creature. The next day, on Instagram, I saw that she had done a painting of it. There were three original signs. I got the small one and the better of the two large ones. When she fell in love with the sign, I told her she could have the small one, and she ended up giving me a painting.”
5 Vintage hi-fi stereo audio system, McIntosh, JBL, Bowers & Wilkins
“The hi-fi is something that started with me in the ’80s. The vintage stereo market is super hot right now. Vinyl is back. Turntables are back. I’ve always liked it. My dad was really into music, especially opera and jazz, so he always had a nice stereo. This is my main setup, and some of it is actually from my dad when he was buying it in the ’80s. I remember this stuff from high school and really wanting it. Hi-fi in the ’70s and ’80s was a high-water mark for quality. I’m into McIntosh amplifiers and JBL speakers—it’s a great combination, like peanut butter and jelly.”
