Peter Brant sits with Vanessa Friedman for a “Lunch with the FT” column and opens up about his goals as a collector and views on his art as an asset:

“Long-term I would, maybe, put a collection in a place – a city, a state, an institution – that really wants to have it,” Brant says. “But the only way to get a great offer for that is to build a great collection.” He often sells pieces to buy other pieces or, if necessary, to fund his pulp and paper business.

“If I have to raise money, it’s what I do,” he says, though there are pieces he would never part with. When I ask him what he would take to a desert island, he says, “a little portrait of Marilyn Monroe Warhol did that used to belong to Philip Johnson called ‘Licorice Marilyn’ and one called ‘Blue Shot Marilyn’, that I bought in 1967 for $5,000. It literally got shot, and then Andy covered up the bullet hole like it was a pimple. I love that piece.”

He adds: “If I had all the art I had sold since I was 18, I would have one of the best art collections in the world. Really. But you have to operate on the premise everything can shift at any time.”