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ABOUT
The history of art collecting is, in large part, an act of preservation: deciding, work by work, what a culture will select to remember. To build a collection is to participate in this process, contributing one's judgment to the history of art rather than simply accepting the inherited consensus of the past.
The contemporary art market incentivizes speed and visibility. Collecting, I believe, rewards patience and relationships that grow increasingly meaningful over time. The strongest collections are rarely assembled in response to momentum; they are built through knowledge and commitment, accruing the deeper insight and access that only come with experience.
I founded Ryba Art Advisory in 2020 to work in precisely this way, advising collectors at every stage, from active museum trustees to those acquiring their first significant artwork. My role is to bring knowledge, judgment, and discretion to building collections that reach beyond the fashions of a particular moment and remain coherent and meaningful many decades from today.
Services
I advise on collection strategy, acquisitions, due diligence, valuation, and sales.
I educate collectors to understand how prices are formed, evaluate market conditions, assess provenance and condition, and determine when restraint is the best course. Sometimes the wisest advice is to wait. At others, I advise on the strategic sale of works, realizing value while allowing a collection to evolve. Other times, it means selling well. Throughout, long-term relationships with artists, galleries, and institutions are as integral to collecting as the works themselves.
Because the most significant opportunities are rarely confined to one city or market, I leverage an extensive, international network of artists, galleries, advisors, auction houses, and institutions.
If you would like to discuss your collection or where it might go next, I would be pleased to hear from you.
PEOPLE
Rebecca
Ryba
Principal & Art Advisor
I am an art advisor specializing in modern and contemporary art, based in New York with an office in Sydney.
I hold an MA in Art Business, awarded with distinction, from Sotheby's Institute of Art, and a BFA (Honours) from the College of Fine Arts in Sydney. While completing my master's degree, I worked at Christie's before serving as curatorial assistant to Neville Wakefield from 2011 to 2016. Between 2017 and 2020, I worked at one of New York's leading advisory practices, advising major private and institutional collections before founding Ryba Art Advisory.
This combination of curatorial and art-advisory experience defines my approach to building collections. I think about what a collection communicates as a whole, more than what any single piece is worth on its own. Working with a client usually starts with a long conversation about what they actually want to say with what they own, and the collection develops an individualized logic from there.
Over the course of my career, I have facilitated major gifts to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Whitney Museum of American Art, LACMA, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, the Farnsworth Art Museum, and ICA Miami. I have built collections with foresight, identifying works by important artists before wider market recognition accrues, including early acquisitions of work by artists including Matthew Wong, Scott Kahn, Yu Nishimura, Andrew Cranston, and Emma McIntyre, among numerous others.
I am an Honorary Patron of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and serve on the Board of Trustees of Eight House Residency, an artist residency in Vermont.
RESEARCH
