Kimberly Pirtle is the founder of Gabriel Advisory Group, an art advisory and philanthropy advisory firm working with collectors and institutions. Previously, she worked at Sotheby’s.

I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, and the first museum I loved was the Detroit Institute of Arts. Before I even knew what a museum was for, I knew the building and its treasures: the Diego Rivera murals wrapping the courtyard, the Vincent van Gogh self-portrait that was the first of his works to enter an American public collection. I understood, with a child’s certainty, that something important happened there and that I was allowed to be near it. Years later, when the city of Detroit went bankrupt in the largest municipal failure in American history, the art inside that building was nearly sold off to pay the city’s creditors. The masterpieces I had grown up walking past were put on a list and given a price.

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