Art collectors sell their art for many reasons. However, Bloomberg is reporting an interview with Wolfgang Joop that may present the first time a collector sold his works because he felt he should be painting them instead:

“In my 2003 autobiographical novel ‘Im Wolfspelz,’ I have my main character Wolf in his New York penthouse being asked by a Tamara de Lempicka picture, ‘Why did you buy me instead of painting me?’” Joop said in an e-mailed answer to written questions. “Now as an artist, I am investing the money I earn in my own art. My collecting years are behind me.” [ . . . ]

“Tamara was beautiful, strong, sexually ambivalent as well as an individualist, which attracts me,” he said. “When I design clothes, it is for this type. And the women who surround me and influence me are a little bit Tamara: pale complexions, red lips, bold expressions.” [ . . . ]

The Lempicka paintings hung in Joop’s New York penthouse, though they were often away from home, on loan to museums around the world, the designer said. He began collecting them in 1978 and bought the last one in 2003. “I whisked away the first picture, ‘Dans l’Opera,’ from under Andy Warhol’s nose,” he said. “He was a notorious penny pincher, though very rich compared with me back then.”

Wolfgang Joop Will Sell Vampish de Lempicka Portraits at Sotheby’s (Bloomberg)