Words by Sheryl Nonenberg
What is believed to be the last painting created by the famed Abstract Expressionist Joan Mitchell occupies almost an entire wall in the entryway of Komal Shah and husband Gaurav Garg’s hilltop home in Atherton. This canvas, a lively dance of swooping blue, magenta, yellow and crimson brushstrokes, usually serves as a starting point for any tour of their expansive art collection. “She was making these very expressive gestures,” Komal explains. “As she got older, she really came into her own.” The same can be said of Komal herself, a high-powered executive in the tech world who is now considered one of the most influential art collectors in the United States.
While some collectors are motivated by the prestige and social advantages that notable art acquisitions can afford them. Komal has always had a very specific focus—she wants to “shine a light” (a phrase she uses often) on women artists and artists of color. And just as she forged her way to success as an engineer at Oracle, Netscape and Yahoo, Komal is leading the charge for artists whom she feels are underappreciated or overlooked. It has, quite simply, become her mission in life.
One might assume that Komal’s passion for championing women artists was born out of a childhood where she herself faced limited options for the future. In fact, it was just the opposite. “I was so lucky to have a father who encouraged my interest in a career in computer science. In fact, he mortgaged our family home so that I could attend Stanford University,” she shares. He did this in spite of her uncles’ admonishment that “those funds should be used for her dowry.” She earned a master’s degree at Stanford, and then her MBA at University of California, Berkeley.
Her first foray into the arts came in 2011 when Komal joined the board of the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. She already had an interest in it (her very first acquisition, in 2009, was a painting on paper by Indian artist Rina Banerjee) but found that her innate love of abstract art was leading her in a different direction. “I found that I felt more comfortable with North American artists of my generation,” she says, adding, “I was awestruck the moment I became a crazy collector.”
With some guidance from recognized experts in the art world like Gary Garrels, a former curator at SFMOMA, and art historian Mark Godfrey, Komal began the process of learning about contemporary art—and honing her eye in pursuit of her “mission.” She attended gallery and museum openings, went to artist studios and art fairs. This led to a “natural networking,” she says. Komal learned that Joan Mitchell had influenced a group of contemporary women artists, all working abstractly: Amy Sillman, Charline Von Heyl, Jacqueline Humphries and Laura Owens. She began to collect their work and get to know them personally, through visits to their studios. “My happiest days are when I can go to a studio and watch art being made,” she says. “It is the best part of collecting: the stories, the person.”
Art by these four women takes center stage in the first floor of the home, which is bathed in light and completely neutral in color, allowing the large, boldly colored art works to dominate. Walking from piece to piece, Komal speaks knowledgeably about each one, not in an art-history-lecture sort of way, but from personal experience—from the heart. Starting with what she calls “the cornerstone” of the collection, Joan Mitchell’s Untitled. “For contemporary women artists, she was one of the most influential.” And, Komal laughs, “she was a badass.”
But it is not just contemporary women artists who have earned Komal’s admiration. She has a special place in her heart for older women who may not have received the attention they deserve. She cites a small sculpture by Sue Fuller entitled String Composition #552. Komal explains that the artist began as an abstract painter and then decided to replace paint with simple colored thread pulled in geometric configurations, which are then encased in Lucite. It looks very sleek and modern, even though it was created in 1965. Komal says she enjoys art by women who were “ahead of their time.”
Unfortunately, that often means that the artist doesn’t enjoy the recognition that a male artist would have received. A good example is Janet Sobel, who is represented by a small mixed-media painting, Untitled. Komal points out that it is done in a drip style and dated 1946—three years before Jackson Pollock would use the technique that brought him into worldwide prominence.
Why does a person whose career has been defined by numbers, objectives and computers find all of this wild, abstract art so compelling? Komal replies without hesitation, “These artists are unbounded by their creativity and imagination—they can go anywhere.”
Today, Komal has a foundational collection, serves on the boards of prestigious institutions—SFMOMA, the Hammer in Los Angeles and the Acquisition Committee of the Studio Museum in Harlem—and created Artists on the Future: The Komal Shah and Guarav Garg Conversation Series at Stanford. Now she’s decided she wants to focus her efforts on making the collection more accessible to people beyond the Bay Area.
Working with curators from SFMOMA, Komal created a 432-page catalog called Making Their Mark: Art by Women in the Shah Garg Collection. The book includes images of works by 136 artists plus eight scholarly essays and short texts by a variety of contributing artists and is available on Amazon. She would love to see it become required or recommended reading at universities.
Last year, a large-scale exhibition devoted to the Shah Garg Collection opened to rave reviews in New York City. The show comes to the West Coast this fall at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, opening on October 26 and running through April 20, 2025. The exhibition coincides with the launch of the Shah Garg Women Artists Research Fund, which will support new scholarship in the form of public programs, publications and exhibitions featuring female artists at the Berkeley museum.
Acknowledging that art collectors are merely temporary custodians for objects that she hopes will live on, Komal declares that what she is doing right now is more fulfilling than anything she’s undertaken before. “I was a workaholic in the tech world and now I spend 60 hours a week around art,” she says. “I can make a much bigger impact in the arts. This is where my heart is.”
ART APPRECIATION Starting this fall, contemporary art aficionados can view over 70 works from the Shah Garg Collection when the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive displays Making Their Mark. The exhibition runs October 26 through April 20, 2025. bampfa.org