Top 200 Collectors

Michael C. Forman is the chief executive of the asset management firm FS Investments, which is regarded as one of the nation’s leading investment managers, having amassed approximately $25 billion in assets. The company has found immense success in its innovative approach to democratizing investments; more specifically, it makes loans to private companies available to any client reporting an income of at least $70,000 and willing to make a minimum investment of $5,000.“It’s about saving for retirement, saving for education,” he once told the Philadelphia Citizen. 

At FS, Forman has made a positive company culture paramount as it reportedly offers art classes and cooking classes. He also displays art from his collection at the firm’s newly built headquarters in the Navy Yard neighborhood of Philadelphia. 

Forman and his wife, Jennifer Rice, focus on collecting modern and contemporary art, including the likes of Sean Scully, Gerhard Richter, Joan Mitchell, and Robert Motherwell, among others. They have also focused on collecting work by artists of color, with artists like Theaster Gates, Alma Thomas, and Sam Gilliam. “We’ve always drawn inspiration, passion, and creativity from art, and we felt it was important to infuse that spirit into our company’s culture,” Forman told ARTnews. 

Forman also serves on the corporate leadership board of the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. In 2017 Forman was honored by Mural Arts Philadelphia, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting collaborative public art projects and high-quality art education and training programs, for his “dedication to the city’s public art initiatives.”

In 2021, Forman and Rice co-founded the Forman Arts Initiative, which supports artists and cultural organizations throughout Philadelphia. Part of that is a new grant-making program called Art Works that will distribute $3 million over five years to local artists and nonprofits with a focus on supporting BIPOC and other underserved communities. “One of the goals of the Forman Arts Initiative is to bring together organizations, communities, and artists to meet, engage, and learn from each other and from art in the same way we’ve been blessed to do in our travels,” Forman recently told ARTnews.