Many investors buy stocks of companies that they love -- choices that may not always pay off. That was certainly true of the Vogels. "The Vogels were always very loyal about the art they bought," Paulson notes. "But as a collector, it's better to be discerning. Getting a representative history of the artist's development doesn't necessarily help increase the overall value of a collection."
Even so, the Vogels' devotion to their favorite artists underlay their relationships and helps to explain how the pair were able to continue buying works even after those artists became firmly established. Many artists were flattered by the early attention: As artist James Siena later recounted, "What distinguished them from other collectors on one level was that they really wanted to see everything ... It almost started to seem as though I was talking to curators rather than collectors."