Picture Frames Are the Art

At a gallery in Long Island City, Queens, Diego Salazar displays his unique collection of art, which is as lovely as it is peculiar. About 250 pieces hang in his main gallery, stacked one inside the next like Russian dolls. Some are covered in cherubs or crosses, others are gilded, and a few are more than 400 years old.

They are picture frames, but nearly every one of them stands empty. The frames themselves are the art.“Sometimes I buy a painting because I fall in love with the frame,” Mr. Salazar said, gesturing to a lonely portrait banished frameless on the floor. “Then I put the picture up for auction.”

Mr. Salazar spent many decades manufacturing frames out of Brooklyn and Queens, and today he is a collector and dealer of frames that are antiques, and can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars each. But as one might imagine, the market for such treasures is limited, so happily for Mr. Salazar, he does not just own that elaborate and varied collection of frames, but also the 40,000-square-foot building in which they hang. When he bought the building, according to his tenants and his wife, the place was a dump.

Mr. Salazar has a sharp eye for things most people briskly overlook. The outlet for this skill that has brought him the most satisfaction, he says, are his antique frames, a collection of about 1,000 pieces that he describes in tones usually reserved for beautiful women. The outlet that has brought him the most money, however, has been real estate, a collection of three buildings in neighborhoods that were long disregarded.

“When he first took me to see the building he bought in Greenpoint, it looked like somebody had dropped a bomb and then left for a year,” his wife, Gladys Salazar, said. “He said, ‘Look at this wonderful place.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God!'”Large two-bedroom apartments in that building now start at $3,650 per month.

Antique picture frames can generally cost anywhere from $8,500 to $500,000, depending on the age, rarity and quality. But even enthusiasts like Laurence Kanter, chief curator at the Yale University Art Gallery, says those with an interest in the frames themselves are an uncommon breed, and have been for centuries. Asked to put Mr. Salazar’s collection in context, Eli Wilner, a frame dealer who restores antiques and sells precise replicas from his collection of 3,500 pieces, said he could think of only one other person, a client of his in Florida, who collected frames for their own sake.“Almost always, people buy a frame because of the painting,” Mr. Wilner said.

Today, Mr. Salazar owns the rental building in Greenpoint, once a commercial laundry facility that is now packed with skylights and exposed brick walls, as well as two buildings in Long Island City. One of those, which looks a bit like an abstract Lego creation, he developed himself. The third, on 44th Avenue, houses his gallery. (Mrs. Salazar said that when they bought that building 20 years ago, they welcomed themselves to the neighborhood by making daily calls to the police to complain about a constant parade of prostitutes and their patrons.)

Even the tenants that the Salazars have chosen for their building on 44th Avenue display their tendency to look where others might not. More than 40 of the building’s 49 spaces are occupied by painters, sculptors and other artists who use the brightly lighted spaces as their oil painting reproduction.

There is Elinore Schnurr, a painter who rents a room down the hall from Mr. Salazar’s main gallery, and who has been in his buildings for the better part of 30 years. There is her next-door neighbor, Christina Zuccari, who is third generation in a family business devoted to restoring oil paintings. And just upstairs, there is Robert Jon Badia, an architect and painter who admits that Mr. Salazar’s enthusiasm for frames has rubbed off on him.

The Japanese owner of a Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting, which was stolen from his home in 2000, was surprised to discover that Sotheby’s in London sold it for more than $1,000,000 in February.The oil painting, “Madame Valtat” -- completed and signed by the famous French Impressionist in 1903 -- was taken, along with five other works from a Tokyo man’s home, in August 2000, according to investigative sources cited in a Japan Times report.The art collector -- who has not been identified -- informed Japanese police after noticing in March the piece had been sold at auction for $1.6 million.

Japanese investigators have not yet identified the thief, who also nabbed works by Russian-born French painter Marc Chagall and Japanese artist Ikuo Hirayama from the man's home.
The Renoir had not appeared on a list of lost or stolen artwork on an international database, so Sotheby’s did not catch it before it went on the block. The Japan Times reported that the owner notified police in Japan after the heist, but neither he nor the authorities contacted the stolen items database to have the works listed.The painting’s owner intends to get the piece back, but may have trouble identifying who bought it because Sotheby’s keeps client information confidential.

Sotheby’s told Japan’s Kyodo News that the seller of the Renoir had acquired it legitimately in 2000 and was able to prove rightful ownership with representations and warranties on the painting.Investigators believe the painting was probably sold to the seller shortly after it was stolen. Sotheby’s said it has been looking into the possibility the work was stolen and is communicating with the parties involved.

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