From 2024
For Reyne Hirsch, a life of curating beautiful objects began with a single purchase. An aspiring stockbroker in the early ’90s, Hirsch had just graduated college and moved to New York City when she decided to explore an antiques store with a “cool vibe.” Looking for affordable finds with which to decorate her new Manhattan apartment, the native Houstonian landed on a single iridescent vase that pleased her for reasons she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“In hindsight, it was something from the Art Nouveau era,” she recalls. “It was Austrian. It was neat. It was different. I was just a kid looking at stuff—I didn’t know anything about what I was buying, but I thought it was aesthetically pleasing.”
This led to the purchase of similar objects, including carnival and Tiffany glass. When a friend’s mother came by Hirsch’s apartment, she recognized the pieces’ provenance and gifted her a book on art glass. The budding collector soon participated in an antiques show in Bayside, Queens, where she sold her entire haul at a profit in a matter of hours to raise funds for rarer items. She was hooked. “I started doing shows all over New York and New Jersey,” she remembers. “I just wanted to buy pretty things, sell them, and buy things from other dealers. I thought it was the coolest job ever.”
Specializing in 20th-century decorative arts, Hirsch ultimately opened a shop in Cincinnati, where she had relocated with her then-husband. When an episode of the nascent Antiques Roadshow came on PBS, he suggested she contact the producers. Hirsch quickly became an on-air appraiser for a show that ultimately drew a viewership of 18 million people weekly.
The 13 seasons she spent on Roadshow put her in contact with Christie’s and Sotheby’s experts while solidifying her reputation as an industry expert. After moving back to Texas in 2009, she was approached by dealer and gallerist Patrick Jones, who was looking to expand into midcentury and modern art.
Jones was running his Austin location, with Hirsch handling the Dallas outpost, when the Dallas Auction Gallery came up for sale last year. In taking over DAG, co-owners Hirsch and Jones have evolved its vision to include millennial favorites, such as urban street art, couture clothing, and 21st-century design. “We sell Andy Warhol to Banksy,” says Hirsch. “We’re a blue-chip art gallery. We have Daniel Arsham, and this Christmas, we are doing Dr. Seuss!”
With everything from luxury watches and Supreme jeans to diamond rings in the mix, Hirsch aims to appeal to a wide range of collectors by way of events like fashion shows and whiskey tastings. She hopes the younger members of her customer base will appreciate DAG’s offerings for their timeless designs as well as their eco-friendliness.
“The younger generation usually controls the buying narrative, and the great thing about [them] is their platform is sustainability,” Hirsch explains. “What’s more sustainable than the things you find in an auction house? We’re trying to get them to experience what the energy is like and how fun it can be … and understand that just like vintage clothing, vintage furniture is fabulous and sustainable.”
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