Art Was There, Through Courtship, Love and Labor

NEW YORK — Before designer Cynthia Rowley built her international fashion brand, she studied fine art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Sitting in the living room of the West Village townhouse she shares with her husband, Bill Powers, and their two teenage daughters, Rowley pointed to an Elizabeth Peyton portrait of a teenage Queen Elizabeth on the wall. “I love that drawing because it feels like something I would have hoped to do when I was in art school,” she said.

“That drawing was in Peyton’s first show in 1991 at the Chelsea Hotel, which feels meaningful to me,” said Powers, a former freelance journalist who for the last decade has run Half Gallery in Manhattan, which focuses on emerging artists.

The couple’s double-height living room is filled with art — as well as Rowley’s colorful new surfboard, which could read as sculpture, and a floating installation of silver balloons spelling “LOL.” “We keep a helium tank in the basement,” she said.

A large Henry Taylor figurative painting hangs over the purple plush horseshoe-shaped couch. A wall of open shelving is studded with glitter paintings by Chris Martin, a Dana Schutz “Peeping Tom” canvas and a Taylor Mead work reading, “I want to take all my psychiatry out on you!” (“My mom’s a shrink,” Powers noted.)

Rob Pruitt’s pink “Panda With Child,” a playful gift from Powers to his wife when she was pregnant, graces the landing at the top of the stairs.

Following are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Rowley: My mom’s whole side of the family were painters. My grandmother did a lot of self-portraits like this (upstairs) painting. She always wore Chinese dresses like that, even though she was 100 percent Italian. It was a very eccentric upbringing, with theme rooms and stuff.

Powers: I got into collecting in the 1990s. I remember buying some Chris Johanson drawings for $150 each. I had thought, prior to that, you had to be a hedge-fund billionaire to collect art. It was a revelation that you could collect people of your generation on a writer’s salary.

Rowley: When we first starting dating in 2002, we realized we both had works from Johanson’s same series. You think about all the ways you connect with someone. For an art appreciator, if I hated his art, who knows if we’d be sitting here today.

Rowley: My water broke [during my second pregnancy] at the Studio Museum in Harlem, at the Lamar Peterson opening in 2005.

It’s just part of what we do. Then, of course, the kids grow up going to galleries. Our daughter Gigi said, “Art is ruining my life!” — because she has to do so many art things. But she’ll come out of it and be happy she knows as much as she does.

Rowley: If you like the person, it seems organic that you like their work. Or vice versa. You like their work and want to know them. Like Rene Ricard. I saw this amazing painting he did in a magazine and didn’t know anything about him. Then we were at a party at Jacqueline Schnabel’s house, and somebody said, “This is Rene.” I was like, “You’re not Rene Ricard, are you?” We became fast friends.

Powers: We have Rene’s painting of the blindfolded guy there (by the piano). In our bedroom, we have a piece where he wrote in cursive, “Love I did the homework but flunked the exam.” That’s a funny thing for a married couple to have.

Rowley: Tom Sachs is another person that we met after I had known his work. We have a mutual love of Sharpies and foam core and making everything yourself.

Powers: These are Tom Sachs sneakers he did as the “Mars Yard Shoe,” and his Tiffany handgun (on the bookshelf). This is a Tom Sachs Leica camera, but it’s cast bronze. He said when he was a kid, the first piece of art he made was a Nikon camera in shop class because he couldn’t afford a real Nikon. It was an artist inventing something they wanted.

There’s probably a Richard Prince on every floor. He’s a friend. I gave this bra painting (on the shelf) by him to Cynthia for Valentine’s Day two years ago — it’s lingerie but you can’t ever wear it. It’s an actual bra.

Rowley: It’s my size, too!