RICHARD GILDER
NEW YORK CITY
+ LEWIS LEHRMAN
GREENWICH, CONN.
AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
Linked by politics, proclivities, careers in finance and a shared attachment to Yale, Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman together have used their considerable resources to expand and enrich opportunities for the study of American history. “Dick Gilder and I established the Gilder Lehrman Collection and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History to tell the story of the country we love,” says Lehrman. “We believe the history of America is one of the greatest stories ever told and that the story is best told and interpreted from the original documents themselves. Only in such a telling can every scholar, each citizen— even every person in a faraway country— read, study and interpret the record of the American people who forged, from 13 impoverished colonies, the great American republic.” The Gilder Lehrman Collection comprises 70,000 letters, manuscripts and other documents with particular depth and breadth in the period from the Colonial and Revolutionary years through the era of President Lincoln and the Civil War. It includes rarities such as the earliestknown draft of Abraham Lincoln’s “house divided” speech opposing slavery (which when purchased at Sotheby’s for $1.5 million in 1992 set an auction record for an American autograph or manuscript), a rare printed copy of the first draft of the Constitution and thousands of soldiers’ letters. “A principal purpose of the collection is its availability to scholars and students,” says Lehrman. For that reason it was on deposit at the Pierpont Morgan Library from 1992 to 2003, and is now at the New- York Historical Society, where the two serve as trustees.

SONDRA GILMAN
NEW YORK CITY AND CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS
20TH-CENTURY AND CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY
The Gilman name is closely associated with excellence in the collecting of photography. The late Howard Gilman, through his Gilman Paper Company, created a spectacular corporate collection, which the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired in 2005. Sondra Gilman, his sister-in-law, has been a major collector herself since the 1970s when, as she described in “From the Heart: The Power of Photography—A Collector’s Choice” (Aperture, 1985), she was “thunderstruck at an exhibition of Eugène Atget’s photographs” and immediately bought one. Gilman is a trustee of the Whitney Museum of American Art, where she has endowed the position of Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography, as well as the Sondra Gilman Photography Gallery. Gilman and her husband, Celso Miguel González-Falla, direct the Sondra & Charles Gilman Jr. Foundation, which has a substantial photography collection. González- Falla serves on the Texas Commission on the Arts and is a trustee of the Art Museum of South Texas.

WILLIAM and MILDRED GLADSTONE
WESTCHESTER COUNTY, N.Y.
BASEBALL ART AND MEMORABILIA
The crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd are basic nutrients for Bill and Millie Gladstone, who live surrounded by hundreds of baseball-themed objects. While the collection has the occasional fan-find, such as the first ball ever in play at Ebbets Field, at heart it’s a distinguished art collection. Baseball paintings by artists such as John Marin, Ben Shahn and William Merritt Chase are matched by extraordinary examples of folk art, including pictures, carvings and other vernacular objects. Long-time supporters of the American Folk Art Museum, the Gladstones have made a promised gift of a carved wood figure of a baseball player (more than 6 feet high with base), considered one of the great pieces of American folk art. Acquired from the Whitney Museum, the figure is attributed to noted American carver Samuel Robb (of cigar store Indian fame), who worked between 1888 and 1903. The Gladstones were major lenders to “The Perfect Game: America Looks at Baseball,” a popular exhibition mounted by the American Folk Art Museum in 2003–04. “We’re still acquiring,” says William, who notes that in 2006 they purchased Gerald Garston’s painting “Opening Day in the Minors,” which carries special meaning: The Gladstones own a minor league team, the Tri- City Valley Cats, a Troy, New York farm team for the Houston Astros. Bill, who retired as co-chairman of Ernst & Young, calls this “the ultimate collectible.”

CAROL and ARTHUR GOLDBERG
NEW YORK CITY
CONTEMPORARY ART
In bucolic Mt. Kisco, New York, some of the most advanced contemporary art can occasionally be seen in an exhibition space known as the Foundation To-Life, which was created five years ago by Carol and Arthur Goldberg to showcase art from their vast contemporary art collection that otherwise would be in storage. Each year a themed exhibition is professionally curated and then opened, by invitation only, to various art groups from museums and universities— and from Carol’s mailing list of 1,600 names. The couple started collecting right after their marriage in 1962 and have never stopped, buying at the start of most of the contemporary movements, from pop and minimalist art to art made  this year. They always buy the work of living artists (photography excepted) and own works by at least 1,000 artists, including Carl Andre, Catherine Opie, Tony Cragg, Nancy Dwyer, Olafur Eliasson and Matthew Ritchie. Some of the collection has been in storage for more than 30 years; the Mt. Kisco art space enables the Goldbergs to rotate pieces out of storage and into the air. “The collection is completely catalogued; someone has been working on it since the 1970s. We take it very seriously,” Carol says, “although we don’t know exactly how many pieces we have.”

BARON and ELLIN GORDON
WILLIAMSBURG, VA.
AMERICAN FOLK ART AND SELF-TAUGHT ART
Baron and Ellin Gordon have been collecting folk art—or, as they prefer, selftaught art—since the 1960s. Though the Gordons started their collection with 19thcentury decorated stoneware, they began concentrating on 20th-century works in the 1980s. Over the years, they assembled around 1,000 pieces, most of them by self-taught artists. They have donated works to various institutions, including the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Hampton University in Virginia and the American Folk Art Museum. But those donations were dwarfed by their recent gift of 300 pieces to Old Dominion University, a 75-year-old urban campus in Norfolk, Virginia, Baron’s hometown. Describing the university as “interested in current problems of all types, with a focus on science and technology,” Ellin says, “We’ve felt that the art fits a contemporary university, and it didn’t take us long to decide that this was the right place.” The gift includes works by 20th- and 21st-century, self-taught American folk artists, including paintings, sculptures, jugs, canes and carvings, and will be housed in what will be the university’s first art center, scheduled to open later this year.

KENNETH C. GRIFFIN and ANNE DIAS GRIFFIN
CHICAGO
CONTEMPORARY ART
Kenneth C. Griffin and Anne Dias Griffin, who are in the process of assembling an important group of Impressionist, modern and contemporary works, made news  when they recently purchased Jasper Johns’ seminal “False Start” from Hollywood mogul David Geffen for a reported $80 million. Kenneth and Anne, who both run hedge funds, recently promised $19 million for a new wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, where Kenneth is a trustee. (He also is a trustee of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art; Anne is a trustee of the Whitney Museum of American Art.) “Ken and Anne Griffin always have been extraordinarily generous supporters,” says James Cuno, director of the Art Institute. “Not only have they given the museum a gift that will almost literally be a cornerstone of the new Modern Wing scheduled to open in 2009, but for many years they have lent rare and significant works to us. Thanks to the Griffins, Chicagoans and visitors have been able to enjoy such masterpieces as Degas’ sculpture ‘Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen,’ Cézanne’s ‘Self-Portrait’; and Monet’s ‘Water Lilies.’ The Griffins’ commitment to the arts extends far beyond their collection; they are just as committed to making sure that artworks are accessible to all.”

AGNES GUND
NEW YORK CITY
CONTEMPORARY ART AND 20TH-CENTURY DRAWINGS
Agnes Gund, celebrated internationally for her advocacy and support of the arts, was elected to the board of The Frick Collection in New York in 2006, after retiring from the board of the Getty Museum, where she’d served since 1994. Add that to a long list of arts programs that have benefited from Gund’s generosity and loyalty. She has donated more than 150 important works to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where she is president emerita and chairman of MoMA’s International Council. She chairs the (New York) Mayor’s Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission; she sits on the boards of The Menil Collection and The Barnes Foundation; and she created and funded New York’s Studio in a School program, which gives children early exposure to the arts. Born in Cleveland, she is a long-time supporter and honorary trustee of the Cleveland Museum of Art. She and her husband, Daniel Shapiro, are noted collectors of contemporary art and have an outstanding collection of 20thcentury drawings.