James Wagner, Insatiable Art Collector, Dies at 85

James Wagner, beloved New York art collector, died at his home in Manhattan on June 7 at age 85. Two months earlier, his husband, Barry Hoggard, and I started arranging visitors to keep him company. Both collectors and art aficionados well-known within the New York gallery world, James and Barry built a collection of over 1,500 works largely acquired from the Brooklyn art scene via their social circles. They jumped into collecting in earnest in 1998 and 1999, acquiring at least 100 artworks in those two years alone after inheriting money from James’s mother. The mid-2000s marked the peak of their activity, with most of the collection’s catalogued works dating from 1998 to 2012. Barry continues to collect today.

In late March, James was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The couple decided the best way to stay happy was to connect James with what he loved: art and artists.

Around 20 years ago, James and Barry gave me my first job in the city: updating Barry’s art world calendar, ArtCal. As I began scheduling the visitors in April, Barry and I returned to a rhythm we established decades ago as if no time had passed. At first, I thought of the visits as a common task people do when faced with the imminent passing of someone they love. But nearly every day, I’d hear a touching story about someone I’d scheduled to visit, a reminder of the unusual impact James had on those around him. Barry and I began scheduling overlapping visits so artists could meet one another. I followed James’s lead and started calling them “salons.” Some days, there would be three to four people in the apartment at once, all sharing stories about art and life while James sat in the middle of it, delighted by the minds of others. By the end, I saw James’s death as a model to live by, a celebration of art, the people who make it, and its ability to form bonds and community.

James Wagner and Paddy Johnson in 2016 (photo courtesy Barry Hoggard)

James grew up in Detroit, visiting the Wagner family farm in Wisconsin. He graduated from John Carroll University in Cleveland in 1962 and went on to study German history in Madison, Wisconsin, and then at Brown University. A German Academic Exchange Service fellowship took him to Germany for a year. James told me he stayed in school to avoid the Vietnam War.

In 1985, James moved to New York for the arts, then settled into the Chelsea apartment where he would spend the rest of his life in 1987. He paid for that life with a nine-to-five insurance job, work that let him do what he wanted outside of it. The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) Wall Street action and march of 1987 brought James into the movement by the following year. He was a key member, though he rarely appeared in photographs, careful not to draw his employer’s attention to his involvement.

In 1991, he met Barry and wooed him with his cooking. Becoming a couple the next year, the two lived a cultural life immersed in the arts and supporting visual artists, musicians, and smaller theater companies like Target Margin.

During these final visits with James, we were, without quite naming it, doing something like what happens in the 1998 film After Life, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda. In it, groups of recently deceased people are tasked with reviewing their lives and choosing a single memory to take into the afterlife. They have only a few days to identify their happiest memory, after which, social workers help the dead design, stage, and film them.

I’m not sure how James, a steadfast atheist, would react if he knew just how frequently during these times I recalled it. But what I found most striking about the movie was the unspoken thesis that art-making forged a path to eternal happiness. For me, each visit became one of those crystallized moments, a spark of joy that took a little bit of James with it and lingered somewhere in the ether. The remembrances that follow are how we complete that process for him, reconstructing our favorite memories so we can carry forward the best of him. If James could abide an afterlife, and I’m not sure he could, this certainly would be the only one he would have wanted.

Judy Wagner

Judy Wagner is James's sister. These recollections were gathered by Judy's daughter, Jen Reiff, and James's niece, Mary Jo Wagner.

Judy (left) and James Wagner (second from right) (image courtesy Judy Wagner and Jen Reiff)

James always had an eye for color and style, even as a young boy. Everyone knew that James paid attention to details and possessed a forceful personality. An example: James convinced me to ride my bike across major thoroughfares, then cry on cue for shopkeepers. The tears got us a discount on the larger, more beautiful planted flowers for our mother on Mother’s Day. He took all the pictures of the family on vacations, even as a small kid. He used his father’s Voigtlander camera some of the time and a camera from his mother. As kids, we would go to Detroit Belle Isle Botanical Garden to take pictures of first communions and graduations. He went to society events at the Belle Isle Boat Club.

Though he grew up in Detroit, visiting the Wagner family farm in Wisconsin with his 81 cousins, he was fascinated by European royalty and style. He traced the family history back to Bismarck. After studying in Germany for years, he arrived back at an NYC port on a boat with his beloved Porsche.

He told me several times: "If you are going to be provincial, you might as well be provincial in New York.”

Magda Sawon

Magda Sawon is a co-founder and director of Postmasters Gallery, which operated in New York from 1984 to 2024, where she organized over 400 exhibitions. She now lives in Italy near Genova.

The last time I talked with James was on Saturday, probably moments after our friend John Powers took that beautiful picture of him with Barry. A final embrace, a tender image of a life they shared for over 30 years.

"I want to say goodbye," James said.

I told him about the boats that I can see from my window moving slowly across the Ligurian Sea, like ghost ships in the haze of the sun.

He died Sunday night. He lived a big life.

People often capture themselves quite well by their social media self-introductions. On Twitter and later on Bluesky, he described himself as “James Wagner, cranky radical, fussy aesthete, humanist, generalist, partner of @bhoggard.”

It's the "fussy aesthete" that gets me; his passion, vast knowledge, and endless curiosity applied to art, music, cooking, even. His mind was fresher and hungrier at 85 than the minds of most younger folks. I wish I were a fly on the wall for all the conversations that the two of them had over the years.

Felix Salmon

Felix Salmon is an Ideas & Culture writer for Bloomberg, host of the podcast Slate Money, and author of The Phoenix Economy, published by Harper Books in 2023.

James was the Platonic ideal of an aesthete, a word that’s far too often used pejoratively or dismissively, but that in James’s case perfectly describes his astonishing depth of feeling and insight, as well as an even more astonishing range of interests and connoisseurships. This was a man with a nigh encyclopedic knowledge of everything from colonial furniture to vintage cars to new music to, of course, the New York contemporary art scene and the Union Square Farmer’s Market. His thirst for new experiences was matched only by his love of revisiting old ones, always in a fresh light, just as his loyalty to his army of friends was only strengthened by his love of meeting new ones.

James was a night owl, and I like to think that’s because of his need to enjoy life every day: Whatever he was doing on any given evening was always more interesting and more important than simply retiring to bed. James managed to duck the death sentence that was meted out to so many of his friends, and he made the most of his gift of life, I’m sure partly for those who weren’t so lucky. Let’s hope they’re all now having a truly fabulous reunion on the other side.

Jennifer and Kevin McCoy

Jennifer and Kevin McCoy are media artists whose interdisciplinary practices span moving image, software, drawing, painting, and installation.

One of the things I love most about New York City, and the art world, is the inexplicable ubiquity of some participants. Even if you don’t go to openings for the better part of a year, when you do, you will see people that you know. Sometimes you know them as a familiar presence, you get to know them through 10-minute conversations, 10 times a year, for 25 years. For Kevin and me, in all the years we showed with Postmasters Gallery, seeing James Wagner and his husband Barry Hoggard provided the kind of reassuring consistency that the best part of the art world can provide. Interested, intelligent people who are obsessed with art, ideas, and full of humor and goodwill. It’s not the art world people love to dish about, but it is the very heart of why being an artist in New York continues to work.

James was a warm, committed art collector, but no pushover. In five minutes, he could name 10 artists living and dead whose ideas touched upon your own and made your work feel seen and urgent. He and Barry once took us to lunch just to get to know us better, and the resulting wide-ranging three-hour conversation remains among the best moments the city has given us. Kevin and I are so proud to be among the Wagner Hoggard collected artists. James’s presence will be sorely missed.

Hoggard and Wagner in front of Alexa Hoyer's “Fallow Frames” (2023) at PS122 Gallery in 2024 (image courtesy Barry Hoggard)

Clarina Bezzola

Clarina Bezzola is a performance artist, sculptor, painter, and trained classical singer.

I remember how in awe I felt. James faced frightening losses, nerve sensitivity, hoarseness in his throat, and the ability to focus, like a fearless soldier. Sitting with everyone and letting our minds wander through memories, insights, and appreciation felt magical.

Sometimes these challenging moments of truth reveal real power of character. James was such a force of life, such a towering personality with an insatiable curiosity! I feel so privileged that during this last visit we could all be present to the jewels of friendship, playfulness, and to the sheer wealth of our existence. May he inspire us to share the light of this flaming torch with whomever we come in contact with!

William Powhida

William Powhida satirizes notions of individual genius, privilege, and the art world’s extremely fucked-up class relations and dependence on accumulated wealth.

James Wagner wore a stylish black bag* when I first met him and Barry Hoggard outside of my first solo show in Williamsburg in 2004. They were the first collectors to buy a work from the exhibition, beginning a long friendship. I know I am not alone in that experience, but that bag is an important detail for me, because it reminds me of the whole world of experience, knowledge, appreciation, curiosity, courage, and love that James carried with him everywhere, from ACT UP protests to visiting Berlin in the summers to attending Momenta Art benefits. He and Barry built a collection of over 1,500 works and a community of artists by tirelessly visiting emerging and experimental venues that crossed disciplinary boundaries. They hosted intimate salons with the fabulous people they met and charmed with their passionate interest in art, theater, music, and, of course, food.

Details were very important to James, from the bags he wore to learning people’s names to finding the perfect vase for flowers brought to him after he came home from the ER (and we did find the vase, but then James studied the flowers again and said, “They’re done. Toss them!”). This is only a small part of my story with James and Barry, but it’s all important because at the end of his life, James had an endless stream of visitors returning what he had given so generously to so many of us as a true patron of artists: unconditional support and love, often expressed through an exquisite meal. I love you, James Wagner, and I will miss you.

* The exact bag was a subject of discussion between Barry and me. I found James’ black Tausche bag, which was first produced in 2003 by a Berlin-based company, while moving some boxes. Barry thought James might have been wearing a different black leather bag from Camden in London when we met. These details would be very important to James.

Michael Gillespie and John Thomson

Michael Gillespie and John Thomson are the founders of the New York gallery Foxy Production, which ran from 2003 to 2023. Michael now works in the social enterprise sector and John is a writer.

James and Barry were among Foxy Production’s first collectors. James led with his eyes. His brave and open collecting of both known and unknown artists helped the Hoggard Wagner Art Collection become a unique panorama of the New York art landscape. He was radically generous. He was always about ideas and beauty, whether contemplating an artwork, listening to a new opera, or recalling queer life in Europe in the early ’60s. An indelible image of James: When arriving for a dinner at their home, he presented us with a handwritten menu, in Italian, listing multiple Austrian dishes and wine pairings.

Man Bartlett

Man Bartlett is a New York-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans sound, performance, installation, and web-based projects. He also hosts First Light Radio, an intergenerational Ambient, New Age, Spiritual Jazz, and Classical Indian show on East Village Radio.

James Wagner and Barry Hoggard at Man Bartlett’s 2012 performance score: “Place your less-dominant hand on the wall for 42 seconds. If possible, make eye contact with someone you love” (photo Miguel Rodriguez, courtesy Man Bartlett)

I first met James online, sometime around 2009, during the early days of Art Twitter. He came to a performance of mine in January of 2010, taking one of the only photos of it and writing an incredibly kind blog post. Despite already having lived an expansive existence by that point, he still expressed ecstatic curiosity for a nobody doing a weird thing; James was magnetic and exceptionally rare. His pursuit of knowledge knew no bounds, and he represented the very best of what might be considered the true collector’s spirit.

He was intoxicating, and to spend any time with him was to be both charmed and intellectually engaged. It’s one thing for a person to have an impact on your early career; it’s another for that to grow into a lasting kinship. Over time I have come to understand just how rare he was in this world, and especially in this city.

James was the real deal, a tireless appreciator of any and all creative and cultural work, no matter how seemingly small or marginal. I loved his eye as a photographer, too. He had an ability to capture mundane and found objects in subversively magical ways, and browsing through his blog over the years while writing this, I became overwhelmed with how much he gave back through his posts.

I’ll remember long, meandering, intimate meals. I’ll remember his joy of conversation, his joy of discovery, his joy of accumulating knowledge, not as a tool of power or expression of ego but simply for the sake of making his sense of the world bigger. And the way he and Barry brought together different types of artists, thinkers, and cultural producers was, in itself, an art.

To say they don’t make them like James anymore would be an understatement. He was one of one, now and forever.

John Powers

John Powers is a sculptor.

I'm not sure how I know James Wagner; he and his husband Barry have been a fixture in my art world for as long as I can remember. Unlike a lot of artists who can point to James and Barry as the first collectors to buy their work, I can't point to any moment of origin, they were just there. We shared a friendship built on dozens of hazy meetings, at openings, at open studios, on the street, over dinners, and shared holidays, and finally, watching James die in his kitchen.

My father was a priest. He believed deeply in Christ's promise of eternal life, and while his death was physically difficult, he died knowing he was going to meet his maker: A Just And Loving God. Watching my father pass was profound and beautiful. I found his death inspiring and comforting.

James was about the most perfect atheist I've ever met. James died certain of oblivion and with as much grace and courage as my father.

I was struck by how true he was to himself. On all my visits, we listened to the stream of a French radio station playing difficult contemporary composition, discordant, atonal, weird fucking stuff. At one point, I worried the music was perhaps confusing James's hearing, but Barry was very clear: This is what he wants to be listening to, he told me.

We talked about music, maybe most of all. Gadenstatter, and Lefrançois, and whoever else, seriously cerebral listening, and for hours at a time! If it weren't his wish, I would have rebelled, insisted we listen to something else, or just sit in silence. But instead I indulged him, steeped myself in his truly urbane and unapologetic sophistication. Time well spent.

"I want to say goodbye," he told me on that last day together. "To whom?" I asked, we'd just spoken with an old art-world friend in Italy. "Everyone, all of them!"

James was full of love for us and wondered at our love for him. "Why?" he asked, happy but mystified by all the attention he was receiving. "You are a charming pig," I told James, which made him laugh.

"I don't think I'll be here," he told me as I promised to return. No rancor, anger, fear, or resentment, just the material facts of life. "Then we'll say goodbye," I agreed, and we did, clasping hands one last time.

Partings should be sudden, my dad used to tell me.

Left to right: John Powers, James Wagner, and Barry Hoggard (photo John Powers)

Michelle Vaughan

Michelle Vaughan is a project-based artist who explores art history, politics, and social issues.

James, like several fanatics in my English family, was very particular about how he listened to music. Music was not just something you switched on for background vibes; music was an art that required full attention.

Whether I was visiting James and Barry at their home, or whether we attended an opera or orchestral performance, he was particular in where he sat and how the acoustics affected his experience. James respected the composer, and therefore attempted to listen to the work as it was intended.

I have always surrounded myself with creators who are specific and purposeful. So with James, it was my absolute pleasure over the last 20 years to appreciate his ability to pay serious attention. Not just to music, but all of art. So when he formed opinions or descriptions about what he experienced, it came from an ideal audience member, a committed connoisseur who cared deeply about beauty, culture, and art.

David Silverman

David Silverman is a neighborhood friend and caregiver.

James’s and my interests overlapped in many spheres for over three decades … but the setting I most associate with him was the Union Square Greenmarket. To run across James in the market was to be ensnared in his sheer delight and voluble enthusiasm for the bounty of produce and seafood available and what he had/will/might cook with it, augmented by his pulling out his phone to show photos of last night’s, or last week’s, dinner (always well plated and garnished). I have a note of sympathy for what must have been Barry’s ongoing patience as James seemingly documented every home-cooked meal before a fork marred the surface. Occasionally, I’d spy James from behind in the midst of a focused consultation with a vendor while inevitably holding aloft images of whatever he had sourced from them recently. He was nothing if not passionate about his pursuits in all arenas.

Some years ago, encountering him after an extended interval, James promptly brought up his serious concerns about the political direction of this country, and informed me they were already making contingency plans to relocate if remaining became untenable. In the middle of this somber discussion, we both became distracted by an improbable-looking vegetable neither of us could easily identify. After getting the attention of the farmer and learning what the intriguing thing was, we spent several minutes immersed in speculating about its taste, ways to prepare it, and what it might well accompany … all thoughts of existential crises temporarily remanded to the back burner.

Jim Hubbard

Jim Hubbard is a filmmaker and co-director of the ACT UP Oral History Project.

James Wagner always seemed to me to be the least likely person to be in ACT UP. He appeared to be just what he was, a mil-mannered insurance executive who cared deeply, but always expressed himself with such equanimity. Before he became a member, he knew no one in ACT UP. He knew no one who wanted to join the group. He just, in his words, “slipped into a march” one day. He joined the affinity group ActionTours and, as a dedicated Tourist, talked his way into a Bill Clinton fundraiser and quietly and resolutely spoke to Clinton about what was needed to end the AIDS crisis. It was the exact opposite of Bob Rafsky screaming at Clinton, “I’m dying of AIDS while you’re dying of ambition,” but nonetheless an essential part of the same campaign to force the government to deal with the crisis.

James was someone who did everything with a steadfast determination. Whether that meant climbing to the top of the Statue of Liberty several times to find the correct wrench to open the windows so that ACT UP and Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!) could hang a banner across the face of the statue or being the support person when ACT UP members barged their way onto CBS News, he was always there to do his part for the cause.

Lucas Ondak

Lucas Ondak is a transsexual curator, writer, and researcher from Edmond, Oklahoma, the occupied land of the Comanche, Kickapoo, Kiowa, Osage, and Wichita people.

I didn’t know James for long, but it was clear from the moment we met that he had a wealth of knowledge. I remember walking through Wave Hill with James and Barry. We had just spent an afternoon admiring art, and the hot summer sun had depleted my energy. But James was as lively as ever: moseying up to trees, reciting their Latin names, reveling in the shape and color of their leaves. He had such verve. I wish I’d been able to learn more from him, but I’m forever grateful for the time we shared.