Elle Decor: Breakfast at Tiffany’s? How About Peter Marino’s Art Collection

Breakfast at Tiffany’s? How About Peter Marino’s Art Collection

The ELLE DECOR A-List Titan displays highlights from his personal art collection at the jeweler’s new Manhattan exhibition space.

BY INGRID ABRAMOVITCHPUBLISHED: FEB 22, 2024

There is no mistaking the black leather–clad man who strolls into the bilevel gallery space at the top of Tiffany & Co.’s Landmark, the brand’s iconic Fifth Avenue store. ELLE DECOR A-List Titan Peter Marino, the architect behind the interiors in the extensive 2023 renovation, arrives clutching two rare Louis Comfort Tiffany Cypriote glass vases. “Where are the pedestals?” he asks, his voice booming across the two-story exhibition space, as a search begins for a pair of custom silver stands that Marino designed specifically to display the treasures.

The vases, and other sterling silver Tiffany & Co. pieces from the 1880s, stand at the entry to the first art exhibition ever held at the Landmark’s gallery—a selection of pieces from Marino’s own extensive private collection, one that spans everything from the decorative arts to contemporary works by Rashid Johnson, Jenny Holzer, Julian Schnabel, and Sarah Sze. “Culture of Creativity: An Exhibition from the Peter Marino Art Foundation” opened to clients of the house today. Almost 100,000 visitors are expected to view the show at public viewings from March 4 through May 20, with free tickets available online—sure to be snatched up quickly beginning March 1.

Marino, who operates his own art foundation in Southampton, New York, says he was thrilled to be asked to curate the opening public exhibition in the space, which is at the top of the 1940s limestone building in an extension created by architect Shohei Shigematsu of OMA New York. “The number one question I get about the Landmark is why I picked works by certain artists to show there,” he says. “The answer is here. These are the artists I collect.”

He and his team worked for months on a scale model of the show, which includes a wall of artworks by Richard Prince and a faux-grass turf with a flock of golden sheep by Francois-Xavier Lalanne. At a recent preview of the exhibition, Marino perched on the head of one of the sheep. “It’s OK. They’re Peter’s sheep,” he said. Indeed, in 2004 Marino—a passionate Lalanne collector—famously commissioned the French artist to create this series of gilt bronze sheep sculptures known as Les Grands Moutons de Peter.

All of the artists in the show—from Urs Fischer to Holzer to Johnson—have work represented elsewhere in the 10-floor store. A Marino favorite: a wall of hand-painted porcelain plates by Massachusetts artist Molly Hatch. On the upper floor, a replica of a new artwork by Fischer (the original is headed to Milan for the new Tiffany & Co. flagship opening there next year) is a dense collage of iconic rings by the house.

There are also several works depicting a favorite Marino subject: himself. These include Schnabel’s 2022 portrait of the architect rendered in paint over smashed plates. Meanwhile, among the highlights of the show are several bronze consoles, known as “boxes,” by Marino. “I’ve been designing them for 20 years,” says Marino, who was inspired by his own collection of Renaissance and Baroque bronzes. “I’m working on a book on them.”