The Lost Art Salon is in a lost corner of the city, tucked under the knuckle of freeways where 101 meets the Mission. Up three flights of red metal corrugated steps, an unimagined world awaits: a gallery of near-vanished, recently rediscovered 20th-century artists.
“People have taken a little bit of extra effort to get here,” said Rob Delamater, who co-owns the business with friend Gaetan Caron. “They’re coming for an experience.”
The experience that unfolds is wholly unlike purchasing art from the often sterile, white walls of a gallery — an environment which, as Delamater points out, does not mirror people’s homes. Visitors to the Lost Art Salon come into a space that feels like a living room, complete with a fireplace and comfortable furniture.
It can be difficult to put into words what kind of art one likes, Delamater said, especially as a new collector. But the no pressure vibe and cozy set-up allows people to imagine art hanging in their own home. This weekend and next the public will be able to do so at special collectors events.
“It really appeals to people to be in a more residential environment that’s more relaxed,” Delamater said. The artworks in the entry are framed and ready to purchase — and full collections in storage rooms up the stairs and in the back await for additional exploration of individual artists.
The Lost Art Salon has a full-service framing shop on site using both vintage and new frames.
But people aren’t only picking out a piece of work when they come to the Lost Art Salon; they’re also purchasing a story. Along with every artwork there’s an incredible narrative of an artist nearly lost but then saved, whether it’s a long-closeted queer artist whose oeuvre was saved by his partner’s will decades after he died or a former Gulag prisoner who found his way to Washington, D.C. in the 1950s to work for the CIA. By buying a work and displaying it, customers are continuing the business’s mission of restoring lost legacies.
During the pandemic when Lost Art Salon couldn’t open their doors to the public, Delamater doubled down on the storytelling on social media. The effort paid off; it’s where the majority of people find the business today, along with word of mouth and repeat customers. Despite operating for 22 years, even many within the art world have no knowledge of its existence. “It can be hard to find us,” Delamater said.
The origin story
It all began over two decades ago. While working in the hotel design business, Delamater realized he knew where to source antiques and decorative items for properties, but affordable-yet-original artworks were an entirely different matter. “I didn’t even know where to go when decorating my own apartment,” he said.
He and Caron were discussing the problem when they had the proverbial lightbulb moment: What happens to the historical collections of more affordable artists? “We gave ourselves a year to hunt and see what we could find,” he said. The first piece they purchased was a single work by an artist named Clyde F. Seavey, an illustrator who worked on the artist team at Patterson & Sullivan and made a living as a commercial artist for magazines like The American Weekly.
The Lost Art Salon had its first show at a flower shop on 16th Street in the Mission, then another at a fine furnishing shop in the neighborhood. They began doing popups all over the city, and the momentum kept building.
Yet when Delamater and Caron realized the breadth of Seavey’s and other lost artists’ catalogs, they shifted from acquiring single pieces to entire collections. “What if really our mission was not just to represent lost pieces, but lost artists,” Delamater said. “And be a part of reviving their legacy and finding a contemporary audience for their work.”
That, in turn, became the litmus test for acquiring new collections — it must be a body of work that will resonate with audiences today and that they will want to live with, since customers at the Lost Art Salon are not high-end investors but people looking for work to decorate with.
Delamater and Caron today purchase entire catalogs ranging from 75 to as many as 500 pieces. This isn’t work by hobbyists or amateurs; the co-owners are selective — choosing around 15 collections a year after having two a day presented to them — and many of their artists have work held in museums and books devoted to them. Yet they never made it all the way to the top.
“Like most people in creative disciplines, after some decades go by, if you haven’t achieved that blue chip kind of high ranking status, your legacy and your work can be forgotten,” Delamater said.
Similar to Delamater, Caron came from the corporate world to the Lost Art Salon; he had a background working in the search engine landscape of the late 90s and early 2000s. Both practicing artists, the two friends wanted to start a business together, but they never thought about opening a gallery to show their own work.
“After about seven years of us making art on the side and showing it in other places, we realized we already have a gallery,” Delamater said. Work by him and Caron are for sale on one of the walls of the main showroom.
The business has been expanding, taking over an upper space they used to sublet. Soon, after a tenant next door moves out, they will have the entire third floor — four rooms in total. While running out of room could be a concern someday, running out of art is not.
“It’s like asking if the ocean is going to stop bringing up seashells,” Delamater said. “They will just keep coming to the shore.”
The why
The small business recently had a full-circle moment when Delamater and Caron were visiting a collection in New York that had been part of the former American Gallery on the Upper East Side. The former co-owner, who closed the gallery after her husband died young, had the artworks in storage since the 1970s.
“Part of the excitement for us was the art itself, but it was also like it was a mirror of our own story — two artists starting a gallery together,” Delamater said. “We’re going to revive their legacy, and it will be one of our exhibits next year.”
In addition to the co-owners, the Lost Art Salon employs a staff of seven. In their 22 years of business, they had their busiest day this past April for their New Collector Saturdays event, which is taking place again on two weekends in October. Online, several pieces a week sell all over the country, Delamater said.
Self-portraits of Lost Art Salon artists hang in the framing area to remind staff of the “why” behind what they’re doing. “These are real stories,” he said. “All of these artists have become my teachers,” he said. Delamater devotes specific days of the week to his own art practice, when he often finds himself trying out new techniques or ideas inspired by one of the many artists hanging in his gallery, creatives who have become his “university.”
In that, by rediscovering lost artists the team is engaged in a larger project of the 21st century: Expanding the cannon. “I’ve had the experience of feeling the spirits of all of the artists,” he said. “Like they’re all out communing with me when I’ve been alone in the space.”
A former student of Evangelical Christianity — where he and Caron met in 1987 on a year-long study program — today Rob is on a different kind of mission. He has long since abandoned Evangelicalism, but he is seeking meaning and spreading it, one art-filled living room at a time.