Robert Loughlin Painted Skateboard, 1990s

Robert Loughlin, an artist and quirky sage of Modernist design. Born in Alameda, California, in 1949, his interest in design flourished at a young age. His work as a picker and dealer in 20th-century furnishings influenced high-end interior decoration in the United States. Collectors and decorators anointed Loughlin, a celebrity, soon after he arrived in New York in the 1980s, seeing in him an unusual amalgam of talents that set him apart from most pickers who provided designers and dealers with their wares. Equal parts artist, art historian, scavenger and horse-trader, Loughlin schooled a generation of collectors in the high quality of half-forgotten Modern and mid-century designers, not by writing or lecturing about them, but by scouring flea markets and thrift stores for discarded pieces of their work and selling them.