SERVICES
ADVISORY
Shea Art Advisory works with new and established collectors to build distinctive collections of depth and lasting significance. For newer collectors, we begin by understanding their interests, priorities, and point of view, then create opportunities to learn through gallery and museum visits, art fairs, auction previews, and artists’ studios. This firsthand engagement helps clients develop confidence in their own eye and make informed decisions.
For seasoned collectors, we provide a discerning edit of the global art world, identifying what merits attention, where meaningful developments are taking place, and how a prospective acquisition might strengthen the collection as a whole. When a client is seeking a particular artist or work, we undertake an in-depth search across galleries, auction houses, private collections, and our international network to identify the strongest available opportunities.
Our advisory services encompass collection strategy, research and acquisitions, private sales, deaccessioning, installation, and ongoing collection management. Every recommendation is grounded in rigorous research, careful market analysis, and decades of firsthand experience.
A particular strength of Patricia’s practice is identifying artists and bodies of work whose historical significance has not yet been fully recognized and introducing them to her clients. These discoveries deepen the historical context of a collection and create meaningful dialogues among the works within it.
Through long-standing relationships with artists, galleries, curators, auction houses, and other specialists, Shea Art Advisory helps clients navigate both the primary and secondary markets. As an independent advisor, the firm represents the client’s interests throughout every stage of the process.
COLLECTION MANAGEMENT
Shea Art Advisory provides ongoing oversight of private collections, from documentation and conservation to insurance, logistics, and long-term planning. Our clients have included museum trustees and collectors recognized by ARTnews among the world’s leading collectors. We coordinate the specialists required to ensure that each collection is carefully documented, protected, and positioned for the future.
Inventory and Documentation
We maintain detailed collection records in a specialized cloud-based database, including provenance, exhibition history, purchase and sales information, valuations, condition records, and related documentation. Photography and video are incorporated when appropriate, particularly for complex installations and time-based media
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Insurance and Logistics
Working closely with our clients’ insurance brokers, we help ensure that collection schedules and appraisals remain current and reflect market changes, recent acquisitions, and deaccessions. We also coordinate packing, shipping, storage, and installation with experienced art handlers, maintaining appropriate insurance and condition documentation throughout the process.
Conservation
We arrange condition assessments and ongoing conservation planning in collaboration with qualified conservators. This may include the care of outdoor sculpture, preventive maintenance for works displayed indoors, conservation treatments, and the timely resolution of issues as they arise.
Collection and Legacy Planning
As a collection evolves, we work with collectors and their legal, financial, and tax advisors to consider deaccessioning, institutional gifts, estate and trust planning, succession, and art-backed lending. We provide the collection analysis and Edit coordinate the valuations needed to support informed decisions while preserving the collection’s broader significance.
COMMISSIONS
A commission can become one of the most meaningful experiences of building a collection. Not every artist accepts commissions, but when the right conversation develops among the artist, collector, and gallery, the result can be an exceptional work created in response to a particular idea, place, or collection.
A commission is a collaboration, not simply a purchase. It requires a shared understanding of the artist’s intent, the client’s goals, the site, budget, and schedule, while preserving the artist’s creative independence. Shea Art Advisory serves as the liaison among the client, artist, and gallery, establishing clear communication and guiding the project from its earliest conceptual stage.
Our role may encompass preliminary proposals and studies, site evaluations, budgeting, contracts, fabrication planning, progress reviews, shipping, and installation. Depending on the complexity of the project, we coordinate with architects, designers, engineers, fabricators, conservators, and specialist installers to ensure that both the artistic vision and practical requirements are fully considered.
At key stages, studio or fabrication visits may offer the client an opportunity to see the work develop and gain a deeper understanding of the artist’s process. Throughout, Shea Art Advisory protects the integrity of that process while keeping expectations, approvals, budgets, and timelines clearly defined.
Selected artists commissioned on behalf of clients include:
Tina Barney, Tony Cragg, The Haas Brothers, David LaChapelle, Sharon Lockhart, Nathan Mabry, Kim McCarty, Josiah McElheny, Vik Muniz, Jamie Nares, Catherine Opie, Julian Opie, Alex Prager, Xavier Veilhan, Robin F. Williams, and David Wiseman.
CURATION
During her years as a gallery owner in New York and Los Angeles, Patricia Shea curated numerous one-person and group exhibitions, working closely with artists to develop and present their work. Artists she exhibited include Marilyn Minter, Sol LeWitt, John Torreano, Lydia Dona, Mark Tansey, Moira Dryer, Robert Yarber, Thomas Nozkowski, Jane Hammond, David Row, Mary Heilmann, James Welling, and Jack Goldstein.
Her curatorial work later expanded to online exhibitions through ArtPlay. She organized Climate on the Edge, an immersive presentation of photography, digital art, and video addressing the urgent subject of climate change.
She also organized Selections from the Blake Byrne Video Art Collection, presented on ArtPlay.com from 2021 to 2022, which brought together compelling and thought-provoking works from Byrne’s extensive collection.