At the opening of San Francisco's FOG Design and Art fair, prominent collector Komal Shah navigated the crowded aisles, stopping to chat with a who's who of the Bay Area art scene, including FOG founder Stanlee Gatti, ICA San Francisco director Ali Gass, and SFMOMA director Christopher Bedford. Shah, known for her collection focused on women artists, was scouting works with a handwritten list, considering pieces by Ruth Asawa and Joan Brown, though she passed on a $425,000 Asawa sculpture. The fair's gala serves as a fundraiser for SFMOMA, and Shah's collection is currently on view at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in the exhibition "Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection."
The article matters because it offers an intimate, on-the-ground look at how a major collector operates within the social and economic ecosystem of a regional art fair, revealing the interplay between personal relationships, institutional support, and market decisions. It highlights the growing prominence of women artists in both collecting and museum programming, as seen in Shah's focus and SFMOMA's upcoming Ruth Asawa retrospective, while also providing a snapshot of the Bay Area's tight-knit art community and its fundraising dynamics.