About A4

Like a work of art, Atelier 4’s story is shaped by people deeply invested in the arts. In fact, Atelier 4 began as a day job that would allow its founder, Jonathan Schwartz, more time to make art.  As an aspiring, yet proverbially “starving” visual artist, Jonathan was lured into delivering art from New York to Los Angeles as a way to supplement his income. After a few years honing his skills in fine art logistics, Jonathan caught the entrepreneurial bug and founded Atelier 4 in 1989. Ever committed to supporting the contemporary art market in New York’s SoHo district, Jonathan at first focused on providing handling and logistics services to this community.  Soon, however, his thriving business attracted the attention of world-renowned museums and collectors. Always driven to provide the highest quality service, Jonathan was faced with a life decision: deliver best-in-breed art handling and logistics to his growing list of clients, or attempt to balance that commitment with his passion for creating his own art.  And so, as the story goes, there went the art studio.

The firm’s name, Atelier 4, derives from Jonathan’s personal history as an artist as well as the bespoke services he endeavored to provide. The name is also a nod to the four artists who are the subject of Roger Shattuck’s “The Banquet Years,” which examines the careers of artists Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie, and Guillaume Apollinaire, whose creative lives and visual output served as a revitalization of the Paris art scene and the foundations of Modern Art.

With a team of expert art handlers, craters, and logisticians, advanced equipment and technology, refined methodology, and broad capabilities, Atelier4 has become a trusted service provider to the most exacting of clients.

All of the firm’s vehicles are equipped with calibrated climate-controls, integrated alarm systems and GPS locators.  The firm’s facilities are equally well-appointed with multiple-redundancy security systems, climate and lighting controls, and flexible warehousing for a wide range of client needs, from small-object storage to large single-owner spaces to monolithic works.

In 2009, the firm opened its second location in Miami, Florida. The gateway to Latin America as well as home to one of the largest concentrations of contemporary art fairs in North America, Miami is the ideal location for providing seamless services not only to institutional and commercial clients but also to private collectors with multiple residences in the Northeast and Florida. In 2018, the firm expanded to the West Coast when it acquired a reputable art handling firm in Los Angeles.  Most recently, the firm acquired and built-out a state-of-the-art facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, to better position the firm to serve museums, collectors and trusts, estates and wealth professionals in the mid-Atlantic region.

After 35 years in business, Atelier 4’s high-touch approach to fine art handling and logistics remains as personalized and client-centric as ever.  The firm delivers in-house services over outsourced, quality over mass-volume, and stays true to its roots as an art services firm founded by an artist and largely run by artists.  Atelier4 knows the true value of an object: it is the importance assigned to it by the creator and its owner, the passion the work inspires in those who see it, and the unique qualities of its construction that require nothing less than the most expert of handling.