What is the Spence Collection?

  A Lifetime of Conversation with Contemporary Art

Over more than thirty years, we (Judy and Stuart Spence) have collected the works you see here. For a while, we lived in a house with enough wall space to show many pieces, but now our house is small and most of the work is in storage, or out on loan - or donated to various museums. This website is a way to present the works we love to those interested in this art and also to curators who may not be as familiar with some of these artists.

This site is still a Work-In-Progress, please bear with us, and let us know of any factual errors! Please send us your comments and we will respond to you as quickly as possible. ~ Continue

  Other Recommended Websites

If you like what you see here, we recommend exploring these other places that matter to us, e.g. Museum of Jurassic Technology, Laguna Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, LACMA. From time to time we will reference galleries when there is an exhibition that we especially like.

Painting For Kubler
Text Painting on Canvas
1966, John Baldessari  |  Acquired 1973

About the Collectors

  Judy and Stuart Spence

Judy and Stuart Spence met in Stanford in 1971 where Judy was visiting a medical school roommate, and Stuart was working as a physics post-doc. They were married the same year. They moved to Southern California while the Pasadena Art Museum was still one of the major creative forces in the art-world. They soon found contemporary art, particularly the California flavor of conceptual art, mattered to them in ways they could not have anticipated. This involvement with art has grown into a voyage of self-discovery. Judy has pursued her profession as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and Stuart has been in several high-tech ventures, and all the while this art has influenced every part of their lives.

~ More about the artists featured in the collection
~ More about Judy and Stuart Spence
~ Show me the collection