Sotheby’s Creators & Collectors: The Second Annual Issue Celebrates Cultural Architects

The actor Greta Lee did not dream of Hollywood. Instead, she imagined something more elusive: a bohemia of her own making, a space where aesthetic ambition and authentic creative engagement could flourish together. 'I wanted to be part of something cool,' she reflects, 'which to me was just about finding a thing that was greater than me and something that I could really get behind in an authentic way.'

That philosophy, woven through both her professional trajectory and her collecting instincts, forms the centrepiece of Sotheby's Magazine's second annual Creators & Collectors issue, a publication conceived to examine the lives and collections of cultural figures who are actively reshaping contemporary aesthetics and discourse.

A Career Beyond Strategy

Lee's ascent entered a new register following her 2023 performance in Celine Song's 'Past Lives', where she portrayed Nora, a New York-based Korean-Canadian playwright navigating the accumulated distance of two decades since leaving Seoul and reconnecting with a childhood love. That role, luminous and introspective, became a threshold. What followed was a deliberate sprawl across genres: film, television, theatre, each choice seeming less calculated than driven by genuine appetite and curiosity.

The trajectory mirrors, in many ways, the ethos behind Creators & Collectors itself. Rather than presenting collecting as a discrete financial or investment pursuit, Sotheby's frames it as an extension of creative identity. The individuals featured are not passive acquisitors but active interpreters of culture, their choices reflecting taste, conviction and intellectual engagement.

A Platform for Contemporary Voices

Sotheby's Magazine has positioned Creators & Collectors as a recurring annual landmark, a editorial space distinct from auction catalogues and sales coverage. Photographed by Sean Thomas and styled by Gerald Saglioni, with writing by Thessaly, Lee's feature joins a broader conversation about the collectors and cultural practitioners who define aesthetic and intellectual currents. The publication reaches across disciplines and mediums, honouring figures whose influence extends beyond any single field.

The second edition affirms the magazine's commitment to showcasing voices that challenge conventional boundaries between art, performance, commerce and collecting. For readers of Sotheby's Magazine, this represents a deepening engagement with culture as lived experience rather than as mere transaction or spectacle.

Sotheby's Magazine's Creators & Collectors issue and the full feature on Greta Lee are available on Sothebys.com, offering a fuller exploration of how contemporary cultural figures conceptualise beauty, legacy and the collections that matter most to them.

Key Facts

• Publication: Sotheby's Magazine, Creators & Collectors (second annual edition)
• Featured Subject: Greta Lee, actor and cultural figure
• Photography: Sean Thomas
• Styling: Gerald Saglioni
• Writing: Thessaly
• Availability: Sothebys.com

The Simply Luxury View

For collectors attuned to the intersection of art, performance and cultural significance, Creators & Collectors represents Sotheby's engagement with a shifting definition of patronage. The publication acknowledges that contemporary collecting is increasingly driven not by inherited canon or established hierarchies, but by authentic personal connection and intellectual curiosity.

Lee's inclusion speaks to a broader recognition within the auction house's editorial voice: that the most compelling collections emerge from individuals who approach cultural objects with the same intentionality and emotional honesty they bring to their professional work. This is collecting as authentic expression, not mere accumulation.

Official brand website: sothebys.com

Imagery is used for editorial purposes. All rights remain with the respective owners, photographers and licensors.

Imagery courtesy of Sotheby's (@sothebys).