In some ways, Johanna and Friedrich Gräfling have grown up together while collecting.
Today, the Frankfurt-based collectors, now in their thirties, hold nearly 650 works in their collection, including pieces by major names such as Alicja Kwade, Michael Sailstorfer, and Laure Prouvost.
But when their collecting journey began more than 15 years ago, they were still university students, newly dating. The couple met at a party hosted by a mutual friend in London. Friedrich was living in London, where he was a student at the Architectural Association. Johanna was visiting, then an art history student studying abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris. “At that time, I wanted to work in the art market, which I always found super fascinating,” she told Artsy. “I spent all my time at museums.”
Friedrich had become involved in the street art scene as a teenager in North Bavaria. By the time he met Johanna, he was spending his free time going to studio visits, exhibitions, and hanging out with artists in his circle.
Soon, the young couple was traveling back and forth between Paris and London.
“We clicked through this interest in art,” said Johanna. “Art was always something that connected us from the very beginning. From the moment our relationship began, Friedrich asked me about art and showed me what he was interested in. We began to discover artists together.”
For the Gräflings, collecting has never been simply a matter of acquisition. It has become a way of building long-term relationships with artists, living closely with their work, and inviting others into that experience. What began as a shared curiosity between two young students has since grown into a broader ethos of art as something to be lived with, shared, and supported over time.
A communal collection
In 2013, the couple founded Salon Kennedy, an impromptu apartment salon staged in one room of their home.
“We’ve always liked to entertain in a way, to have people over, cook for them, to bring people together. Historically speaking, we liked the idea of the salon culture,” said Johanna. “We shoved all the furniture away, invited the artists to hang their works, and invited people over who we thought could be relevant for them to get to know the artists’ works.”
Salon Kennedy still exists, in a more formalized way, as a permanent exhibition space in the couple’s Frankfurt apartment. Today, Johanna and Friedrich also run Gräfling, a Frankfurt-based design studio that works across architecture and design, as well as Kunstverein Wiesen, a nonprofit art institution in rural Germany, focused on a slower rhythm of making and connecting with art.
“You actively have to decide to come to drive out to Wiesen, in the countryside, to visit the exhibitions,” said Friedrich, “It’s a different way of looking at art when you don’t have anything else to distract you.”
Collecting with consideration
Despite busy schedules and two children, the couple never rushes to collect. Instead, they’ve cultivated a rigorous process of purchasing art that prizes deep connection over fleeting thrills. Purchasing a first work by a new artist can take the Gräflings years to decide upon.
“We don’t buy works in a moment of passion,” said Friedrich. “There’s a long journey until we are committed, and we know we are 100 percent sure we want to follow this artist as long as we can financially.”
The aim is never to own just a single work but to grow alongside an artist, collecting their oeuvre in depth. Today, the Gräflings hold deep collections of works by artists including Sailstorfer, Paul Czerlitzki, Kwade, Jorinde Voigt, Prouvost, Grace Weaver, Christian Jankowski, Gregor Hildebrandt, and Sung Tieu. They continue to discover new artists through exhibitions, fairs, and other artists, some of whom have become friends.
But while the couple espouses an intellectual approach to building their collection, art has found its way into the most intimate moments of their lives.
“In the dining room, we have a huge painting by Grace Weaver, which is very colorful and very personal because this was our wedding gift,” said Johanna. “She painted the scenery of our wedding in her way. This is the most dominant piece in the dining area.”
Meanwhile, in their bedroom, among works by Prouvost, Andreas Gursky, Taryn Simon, and Kwade, are two paintings by Hildebrandt, made as presents for the births of their children.
The couple doesn’t limit themselves to a single medium or aesthetic when collecting, but focus on works by contemporary artists that they believe will be of historical significance well into the future.
The Gräflings acknowledge that the way they live with art is continuing to evolve. The couple once lived with a Petersburg-style hanging, the apartment’s walls covered in art. After redoing the space, they pared back, putting some work in storage. Now, the work has begun to accumulate again. “The works keep coming,” Johanna said, with a laugh.
This deep pleasure is what has inspired, and continues to inspire, the Gräflings to welcome potential collectors into their home. “It is always nice if we can encourage or transmit the spark we have for art and for buying art and for living with art to people who haven’t had that so far,” said Friedrich.
