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THE TOP 25 J.P. BRYAN, HOUSTON LUIS AND CECILIA CAMPOS, HOUSTON F ew collectors have assembled visual riches to rival those of J.P. Bryan, whose single-minded quest for the objects that relay the fabric of Texas history is on view at The Bryan Museum, Galveston, housed in the historic Old Orphans Home, a grand edifice restored by Bryan and wife, Mary Jon Bryan, after purchasing it in 2013. Bryan says of his collection: "It consists of more than 75,000 objects of art, artifacts, and documents which provide a vivid display of the history of the greatest event of all time, the settlement of the American West." Those vast holdings of Texana and the Western narrative include the original Borden map of Houston, taken from a survey begun October 1, 1836; an 18th-century mother-of-pearl chest from the Spanish Colonial era that once carried a royal land grant; and the Mexican Lancero saddle, circa 1860s, that belonged to Eufemio Zapata, brother of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. O ne of the significant collecting areas in Texas has been Latin American art, fueled by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where influential curator Mari Carmen Ramírez has reigned since 2001. Consequently, some of America's greatest private holdings of Latin-American art reside in Houston. Cue Dr. Luis and Cecilia Campos. Dr. Campos recalls the couple's five-decade collecting trajectory, "We started in the early '80s with figurative and more eclectic art, but we migrated toward geometric, kinetic, and conceptual works at the turn of this century. Later, we met Mari Carmen Ramírez and became involved in developing the collection of the MFAH as well as [our own]." Among the notable South American masters in the Campos Collection: Jesús Rafael Soto, Hélio Oiticica, Julio Le Parc, Joaquín Torres-García, Mira Schendel, and Gyula Kosice. "We particularly appreciate the work of [the late] Carlos Cruz-Diez — his color in motion, but even more, we love the artist, this petite man with the biggest heart and the best brain one could find," Dr. Campos says. (Continued) Carlos Cruz-Diez's Physichromie No. 2366, 1996 Top: Charles Franklin Reaugh's Pike's Peak From Gateway to Garden of the Gods, 1898 Above: Spanish 18th-century mother-of-pearl chest 78