This influential L.A. collector bought the artists no one else would. The art world is finally catching up

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Few people have done more to shape Los Angeles’ art scene than Eileen Harris Norton.The third-generation Californian, born and raised near Watts Towers in South Los Angeles, bought her first artwork at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, co-founded Art + Practice in Leimert Park, and has spent 50 years collecting artists who were, in many cases, her friends and neighbors.She also became a major force behind a generation of museum curators who have systematically changed who and how institutions across the country collect.The city now has an opportunity to engage with her legacy through an exhibition, “Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection,” at Hauser & Wirth in downtown L.A.

through August.Featuring more than 80 works — many of which hung in her home until recently — the show offers rare insight into a renowned collector whose acquisitions are marked by sustained support for women artists, artists of color and Southern California-based artists, and a belief in art as an engine for education and social change.During a recent interview that began in the leafy courtyard of the gallery, Harris Norton shared the story of her collection, revealing the personal depth of her connection to the art and artists in the process.It’s a material history of a culture: one Harris Norton didn’t just witness or document, but actively built.The notoriously private collector is lively and disarmingly funny.

She noted that her kids call the celebrated abstract painter Mark Bradford “Uncle Bradford,” and that when she first met him, he was “living in this hole and creating these beautiful pieces.”When she addresses the discrimination she encountered in the art world, she doesn’t name the racial overtones.She pitches her voice higher, widens her eyes, and lets the imitation convey her meaning.

“Now everyone says, ‘Oh, Eileen, I wish I had a Mark Bradford,...