modern art + the hollin hills home
photo: tod conell
in a stunning collection of contemporary art, rick ward takes on the void — and wins
by stephen brookes
You’d have to be pretty much legally blind to walk down Martha’s Road without noticing – and being delighted, shocked or just amazed by – the huge shimmering sculpture in front of the home of Rick and Ann Ward.
An abstract but strangely-human assemblage of stainless steel arcs, the piece (“Silver Diamonds,” by Rob Lorenson) seems to explode with life, as if it were about to jump playfully into the air. It grabs the eye and transforms the landscape — and it’s only the tip of a vast trove of contemporary American art that fills the Ward home, a collection that reflects a life immersed in the world of artists, museums, galleries and collectors.
“I’ve always been astonished at people who don’t collect art,” says Ward, leading a visitor through his winding sculpture garden and into the house itself. “You walk into a sterile, minimalist environment, and you think: What is wrong here? Why is it so empty? Maybe that’s one of the functions of art: it fills the Void.”
The Void, honestly, never stood a chance at Ward’s house. Virtually every square inch is bursting with paintings, sculpture and artifacts, an almost kaleidoscopic display of well over a hundred works by important artists.
Bold paintings by Sam Gilliam and Gene Davis preside over punchy little sculptures by Ted Larsen, a gentle Wolf Kahn pastel hangs by the door, primitive African carvings set off a delicate glass work by Dale Chihuly, antique Buddhas attend a meditative painting by Leon Berkowitz, a barely-there minimalist piece by Susan York radiates outsized power – everywhere you turn, there’s another new wonder to discover.
And while it’s an eclectic and wide-ranging collection, each piece seems linked to the others in a kind of jazzy, freewheeling “conversation,” as he puts it. Even the house itself chimes in, with walls painted in vibrant shades of blue, red, purple and green. Minimalist, it is not.
“I never set out to be a collector,” says Ward, who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago before coming to Washington in 1977 to launch a career as a painter. Success came quickly, with group shows at the Corcoran Gallery and the Phillips Collection, and a solo sold-out show at the Barbara Fiedler Gallery.
But even successful artists sometimes starve, so Ward worked odd jobs in galleries, installing exhibits and transporting artworks. He eventually launched his own company, providing those services to museums, galleries and collectors on a nation-wide scale. Business boomed, and Ward Company, Inc. soon turned into his new career.
“I was able to stay in touch with artists, and with the movers and shakers of the art world,” he says, “yet also earn an income. It set my life on a different path.”
“the great thing about collecting is that it’s all silence, it’s all poetry”
Ward began buying occasional pieces of enthographic art, and works by painters he had come to know, including Gilliam and Berkowitz. As his collection grew, he says, so did what he calls his “esthetic” – his inner sense of what is beautiful and meaningful in art. Over time, his focus sharpened, and he now only collects work by living American artists, many of whom have become friends.
That human connection is essential, he says; he almost never buys art from a gallery or at auction. Instead, he visits artists in their studios, gets to know them, and buys from them directly whenever he can. That’s how he acquired the Lorensen sculpture – which the artist then drove down personally from Massachusetts, in the back of his truck.
“You’re buying work from someone who has something to say, someone whose work speaks to you,” he says. “There’s a conversation that goes on between you and the object.”
“the human connection is essential”
Since moving into their light-filled house on Martha’s Road in 2006 (he and Ann came there from Rippon Road, where he’d lived since 1990, and where they were married), Ward has been increasingly focusing on sculpture, including works by Peter Woytuk, Dan Corbin and Tom Waldron.
“I think of this house itself as a piece of sculpture,” he says, adding that he often moves artworks around to see how they interact with each other, and to create spaces to contemplate the collection.
“The great thing about collecting is that it’s all silence, it’s all poetry,” says Ward. “You spend your time developing a sense of what’s important. And that’s the joy of it.”
— Stephen Brookes
