Ask Francie Bishop Good -- artist, collector -- to choose a favorite work from among the 73 photographs, paintings, videos and sculptures from her collection on exhibit at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, and instantly you regret putting her on the spot.

You suspect that asking such a thing is akin to probing a parent about which of her children -- two (plus two step-children) in this case -- she likes best. But Bishop Good readily glides over to Tina Barney's large color photograph, The Granddaughter, a portrait of a young woman in a striped Tommy Hilfiger polo casually leaning against a glass-enclosed cabinet filled with fine equestrian figurines.

''She's innocent, like a blank tableau,'' Bishop Good says. An elderly man and woman, clad in formal navy-blue suits, diamond rings on each of the woman's folded hands, peer somberly from the background, their faces worn but well groomed.

The photograph launches a conversation about the collection Bishop Good has amassed with her husband David Horvitz -- 90 percent of it artwork by women who explore issues of identity, role playing, domesticity and feminism.

These artists, Bishop Good says, are ``not afraid to investigate their feelings.''

This curated selection from Bishop Good and Horvitz is exhibited with another sampling of art from Minneapolis art dealer and Fort Lauderdale resident Gordon Locksley and his business partner George T. Shea.

The two admirable, yet strikingly different collections are shown under the apt umbrella title With You I Want to Live after a pink-and-white neon work by London-based artist Tracey Emin in Locksley's collection. (The Bishop Good-Horvitz collection also includes two works by Emin -- the video Finding Gold from 1966, and I think it's in my head, a blue-and-pink neon wall sculpture from 2002.)

Who wouldn't want to live with such extraordinary art?

Among the 41 pieces compiled from the Locksley and Shea collection in the upstairs gallery, three lovable white Fiberglas pups walk around in circles on stilts, a work by Yoshitomo Nara of Tokyo. A British phone booth rises from rubble in an installation by Bransky. The collection is most notable for such seminal international works and for its slate of contemporary American masters.

TOOK A CHANCE

In 1964 Locksley, now 78, opened the Locksley Shea Gallery in Minneapolis, representing artists who eventually became icons -- Andy Warhol, Donald Judd and Brice Marden. Works by them are included in the exhibit, most notably Black Flowers, a Warhol silk-screen on canvas that is accompanied by a group of eight flower drawings commissioned for a 1975 exhibition at the gallery.

''. . . They weren't masters at the time. They were just young guys starting out in the business, and I got interested in their work, and I showed them, and I got on my knees and begged my clients to buy them,'' Locksley says in a conversation with art dealer Bill Harkins in the exhibition catalog.

Locksley's most recent acquisitions -- commissioned for this exhibition -- feature works by street artists who've taken graffiti to new heights.

In the large-scale Alixa and Naima mixed media, Brooklyn street artist Swoon, who specializes in life-size, wheat-paste prints and paper cutouts of women, is inspired by German Expressionist wood-block prints and Indonesian shadow puppets.

What factors determine whether Locksley will acquire a work?

Join the discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.repliedToText@

@Nyx.replyAnswerText@

Reply to this Comment @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@