THE PEOPLE on the WALL

When everyone you know is art world royalty, the pieces you live with are more than just a collection. They're the story of your life.

- LAUREN MECHLING

If Peggy Guggenheim's motto was "Buy a picture a day," then Ivy Shapiro's version might be "A picture for every day." Her brightly appointed and boisterous home, spread across the fifth floor of a prewar building on one of the leafiest streets in Brooklyn Heights, is a picture palace that showcases works by some of the greatest American artists of the 20th century. It's also an intimate and beautifully haphazard scrapbook of Shapiro's singular life.

Rare is the item in her collection that wasn't made by somebody she knows, and the pieces function as stand-ins for their makers. "Even when I'm alone, these people are keeping me company," says Shapiro, 52, as she sweeps through the front entryway, looking spritelike in her day dress and Gucci slides. "Everything here has a story. They're all by friends or family members, so it's more than beautiful art. It gives texture to my space." 

It's a texture that's never stagnant, thanks to Shapiro's incessant urge to reconsider and rearrange. "It's like when you're at a party and people have to circulate or else things start to feel static, says Shapiro, who returned from the Venice Biennale just last night and seems simultaneously sleepy and keyed up. She pauses in front of a painting on wood by Carroll Dunham. "Isn't it fun? He didn't make a lot of them. She and the artist became friends in the 1990s, when Shapiro was working as a gallery girl. On the same level hangs a haunting image by the artist Ellen Phelan, who is married to Shapiro's father. "This is my dad and stepmother fighting" she says, her tone turning more amused.