Collecting with a Purpose

What motivates us to collect objects? And what element of discernment enters the process when we collect art? Brown University Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior Benjamin Greenberg explores with former CEO of the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis Daniel Vasella, just what has been going on in his mind while assembling a noteworthy collection of Asian art.

Ticket includes a post-program gallery tour at 8:30 pm.

About the Speakers

Daniel Vasella is Honorary Chairman and Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Novartis AG, a company that engages in the research, development, manufacture and marketing of health care products worldwide. Dr. Vasella served as Chairman of Novartis from 1999 to February 2013 and as Chief Executive Officer from 1996 to January 2010. Dr. Vasella is a director of PepsiCo, Inc., a member of the International Business Leaders Advisory Council for the Mayor of Shanghai, a foreign honorary member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a member of several industry associations and educational institutions. He began collecting Japanese prints at the age of seventeen.

Benjamin Greenberg is professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Butler Hospital at Brown University, where he specializes in pathophysiology and treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Dr. Greenberg graduated from Amherst College, received a PhD in the neurosciences from the University of California, San Diego, did postdoctoral research in neurotoxicology at the Harvard School of Public Health, and then earned a medical degree from the University of Miami School of Medicine. He did postgraduate medical training in internal medicine at the New York University VA Medical Center, in neurology, at the Neurological Institute of New York, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, and completed psychiatry residency at Johns Hopkins University.

This program has been made possible by Sotheby’s.