Curator, author, artists’ advocate and confidant to collectors, Michael Klein has been at the center of contemporary art activity since 1977.

A consultant who savors the still untamed spirit of Modern and Contemporary Art, yet informed with a thoughtful understanding of their cultural history and influence on the art market, Michael’s connoisseurship is respected among private collectors and curators of leading museums. In today’s mercurial art world of galleries that open and close by the dozens and art fairs boisterous with “buzz,” Michael’s guidance is equally a source of adventure and reassurance for clients building collections of emerging, mid career and established artists.

As the owner of the Michael Klein Gallery in New York from 1983 to 1997, and later as an independent curator, Michael organized successful exhibitions of twentieth century and contemporary painting, sculpture and photography, notably for New York’s Independent Curators International, the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, the University of South Florida’s Contemporary Art Museum in Tampa, and the Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans. In 1999, Microsoft appointed Michael as the first curator of its newly instituted art collection, a position he held for six years. As a result of Michael’s formative policies for commissions, acquisitions, collection management and an innovative art education program for the company’s fifty-thousand employees, the Microsoft Art Collection became one of the premier corporate collections in the world. Today, as the principal of Michael Klein Arts, Michael continues to consult on strategic planning and program development for major institutional clients including the Allan Stone Estate and the Grace Hartigan Bequest at Maryland Art Place.

An accomplished writer, lecturer and art educator, Michael’s published work includes catalog essays for such significant artists as Louise Nevelson, Alex Katz and Jonathan Borofsky. His articles have appeared in prominent print and online art publications, among them ArtNEWS, Sculpture Magazine, Artnet and The Art Section, covering major twentieth century artists Grace Hartigan, Malcolm Morley, Sol Lewitt, Mel Bochner and Alice Neel. Michael also brings his intimate knowledge and passion for the arts to general audiences and students through his public lectures and as an adjunct faculty member of New York University.

Fostering the careers of artists is an equally important element in Michael’s practice and a source of personal pride. As an artists’ agent, he represents a select group of artists whose work is now exhibited worldwide and held in important private and institutional collections.

Knowledge, experience, connoisseurship, and the pleasure of embarking on a shared aesthetic adventure, these are at the heart of Michael Klein Arts.