Former Fashion Executive Cathy Ho Lee on Collecting Art and Trusting Her Eye

Cathy Ho Lee, a 34-year-old former fashion executive based in New York, is featured in CULTURED's 2026 Young Collectors list. She applies skills from her fashion career—editing, decisiveness, and trusting her eye—to art collecting. Lee credits the late Philip Hewat-Jaboor, chairman of Masterpiece London, for teaching her to see objects as living arguments. Her involvement with the Whitney Museum has deepened her looking. She collects works that are both subtle and searing, and is now exploring works on paper, a medium she once found intimidating. Lee names Cornelius Norbertus Gijsbrechts, Tara Donovan, and Josh Kline as artists she is excited about, praising Kline's prophetic vision seen in his Whitney exhibition "Project for a New American Century." She would lunch with Andy Warhol to tag along to Studio 54.