- Josh Brolin spoke to the Felix Podcast about being an art collector—a relative rarity in the film industry.
- The actor sees parallels between the art world and Hollywood, and how business needs influence creativity.
- Brolin has always been deeply inspired by art—but learned the hard way that buying from galleries with deep waiting lists can be difficult.
The actor Josh Brolin just revealed his art collector bona fides, including how art museums become his lifeline when he’s away from home—and how his Hollywood connections don’t necessarily help when it comes to scoring a painting from an artist with a long waiting list.
The film star was a guest on the Felix Podcast, hosted by Dean Valentine, the movie producer and founder of Los Angeles’s Felix Art Fair, and art journalist Janelle Zara. Joining Brolin in the recording booth was his longtime agent, Joel Lubin of Creative Artists Agency (CAA). A board member at the Hammer Museum and ICA LA, Lubin has been collecting art for some 15 years, and Valentine was one of his first contacts in the art world.
Brolin, of course, is known for roles in movies like The Goonies, No Country for Old Men, the Dune series, and his Oscar-nominated turn in Milk. But, he revealed, that doesn’t always give him a leg up at galleries when trying to secure a coveted artwork for his collection.
Danielle Mckinney, Cortex (2024). Collection of Josh Brolin. Photo courtesy of Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York.
“I have succumbed to a sucking-up that I would never allow myself in any other capacity,” Brolin admitted, describing a particularly humbling experience trying to buy a work by Danielle Mckinney from Marianne Boesky. “Your ego gets shot down because you go, you find out later you were in the back of the line because there were loyalists, there were relationships, there’s all this stuff! And I find it all very humbling… that comes down to the very simple fact that I’m in love with this painting.”
Brolin did eventually get a Mckinney. And sometimes he has better luck in the gallery pecking order, such as when he bought a Jammie Holmes from Jeffrey Deitch. The dealer actually told Lubin that he hoped Brolin would buy one specific work, “because I think it will enrage the art world,” the actor recounted, explaining that Deitch was responding to his sincere appreciation of the piece, rather than making a calculated business decision—”and I’m super grateful to him for that!”
Josh Brolin with his art collection, including his Jammie Holmes painting. Photo courtesy of Josh Brolin.
“He sensed that Josh actually loved Jammie Holmes’s work. And it’s like, ‘oh, that’s going to go to somebody that cares about it,’” Lubin added. “I would say Jeffrey’s unusual.”
A Serious Collection
Among the other artists joining Holmes and Mckinney in Brolin’s collection are Celeste Rapone, Honor Titus, Jonathan Gardner, Genieve Figgis, Shara Hughes, and George Condo,
Brolin credits a months-long trip to Europe after an early acting job at just 17 with helping solidify his love of art. When he found himself feeling lonely during his travels, Brolin would go to art museums.
“I would stay in the Uffizi for like 10 hours… [and] create these relationships with these paintings,” he said, later likening the intensity of his love for specific works to an affair. (Having a collection of his own means he doesn’t have to be “the weird guy that’s looking at one painting for five hours in the museum.”)
But art has also helped Brolin forge relationships in his professional career. Lubin and Brolin built a friendship first, based on their mutual interest in contemporary art—Brolin, now 58, bought his first work in his 20s.
Josh Brolin with Jonas Wood at one of the artist’s exhibitions. Photo courtesy of Josh Brolin.
Art also helped Brolin connect with his stepmother, Barbara Streisand, who has been married to James Brolin since 1998. He recalled being impressed that she had hung a Lucien Freud painting on the wall.
“My dad… was like, ‘yeah, that thing freaks me out,’” Brolin said. “I just want to sit and stare at it and stare at it and stare at it.”
Brolin also has a small painting studio at his home inspired by Jonas Wood. He actually went through a dedicated painting phase, after the birth of his first child in 1988—but threw out all his paintings in a fit of frustration. (His downstairs neighbor fished them out of the trash and sold them for $10 each at a thrift shop, so somewhere out there are about 35 original Brolin oil paintings.)
Celeste Rapone, House Spirit (2025). Collection of Josh Brolin. Photo courtesy of Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York.
The wide-ranging conversation also included Brolin’s memories of lining up at four in the morning to get into a blockbuster Cy Twombly show at New York’s Museum of Modern Art—his first reaction? “I hated it.” (He’s since come around on the artist.)
And Brolin also weighed in on the parallels between the art world and the film and entertainment industry, and how both are responding to market demand, whether that is a studio making another high-budget superhero film, or a successful artist continuing in the same, in-demand style, rather than exploring new artistic avenues.
“The great artists that I’ve ever come across in any medium are just really geeky… They’re serious about their craft and they’re born misfits,” Brolin said, identifying Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, and Lady Gaga as true artists. “But they were totally and completely themselves, which… I find to be a real rarity.”