100 Top Collectors Who Are Making a Difference
March 2007
GRAHAM and ANN GUND
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
CONTEMPORARY ART
Graham and Ann Gund’s collection of contemporary art ranges from five-star names to the not-yet-discovered. When the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston exhibited “A Private Vision: Contemporary Art from the Graham Gund Collection,” The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Gund is not the kind of collector who sticks to the big names and treats the others as amiable nobodies. He has taken a flyer on younger and less-known artists all over the country,” including artists like Scott Prior, Natalie Alper and Roy DeForest. The Gunds have been supporting Boston art institutions for decades. At the MFA, they established the endowed Ann and Graham Gund Director position and the Graham Gund Gallery, and at Harvard Gund created the Architecture Exhibition fund. They’ve loaned their art, supported museum acquisitions and opened their home to art fundraisers such as 2006 Blooming Art, which raised over $1 million for youth arts programs. Gund Partnership, his architecture firm, has designed buildings on many college campuses, most notably the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. Gund has been a trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and is a cofounder of the Nantucket Preservation Trust.
HUGH and MARIE HALFF
SAN ANTONIO
AMERICAN IMPRESSIONISTS
Adazzling collection of American Impressionist art graces the San Antonio home of Hugh and Marie Halff—26 paintings mostly from the 1880s to the early part of the 20th century. Following their first purchase 20 years ago—a Winslow Homer—the couple has acquired works by Childe Hassam, William Merritt Chase, John Singer Sargent, John Twachtman and Edward Hopper, among others. The complete collection was on view at the Smithsonian Institution American Art Museum early this winter. “An Impressionist Sensibility: The Halff Collection” was described by the museum as “one of the finest small private collections of late 19th- and early 20th-century American art.” This was the first time this art was seen publicly in its entirety, although the Halffs frequently lend their paintings. Immediately upon the closing of the Smithsonian exhibition, their two Venetian Sargents went straight to Adelson Galleries in New York. They are traveling with the Adelson exhibition, “Sargent’s Venice,” to the Museo Correr in Venice (March 24–July 22). The Metropolitan has exhibited Hassam’s “Clearing Sunset (Corner of Berkeley Street and Columbus Avenue)” and Chase’s “The Ring Toss.” “If it’s a good museum or a dealer we really like, we’re glad to lend our pictures,” says Hugh.
ANDREW and CHRISTINE HALL
FAIRFIELD, CONN.
CONTEMPORARY ART
Last summer a 25-foot-tall gray steel shed dominated the lawn of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut. It was “Velimir Chlebnikov,” an installation of 30 recent Anselm Kiefer paintings, acquired in London and loaned to the Aldrich by Andrew and Christine Hall. The British-born couple has assembled a remarkable collection comprising largely German neo-expressionist art—Georg Baselitz, A.R. Penck and Sigmar Polke among others— but also works by other hot contemporary names, such as Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly and Franceso Clemente. The Halls are full of enthusiasm: They flew to Baselitz’s castle in Germany and bought his entire personal collection of German contemporary art—120 huge works that filled 20 rooms. Not long after, the Halls bought 30 new Kiefer paintings and, directly from Baselitz, an additional 15 Baselitz paintings. They have so much art that a good part of is stored in Manhattan, where one hopes they get to visit it. The Halls have established the annual Hall Curatorial Fellowship at the Aldrich, which enables curators from abroad to curate and install an exhibition of art created within the past five years by an international artist.
ANDREW D. HEINEMAN
NEW YORK CITY
NAVAL WARSHIP MEMORABILIA
Retired attorney Andrew D. Heineman has amassed a unique body of naval warship information—an encyclopedic database of photographs and explanatory historical data for thousands of individual steam-steel ships from 1860 to the present. This mountain of material is maintained in 600 binders containing separate files for each ship. Though the collection concentrates on naval warships from the United States and England, it also includes Japan, Italy, France, Russia and Germany, plus all major ships from other countries. Heineman also has 300 ship models and many related books. “I began this collection at the start of World War II, when Dad gave us a copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships, and I’ve been unrelenting ever since,” he says. “I’ve gone through at least 10 pairs of scissors and bought a second apartment for the collection.” Heineman has promised this extraordinary collection to the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
BEN W. SR. and NATALIE HEINEMAN
CHICAGO
CONTEMPORARY STUDIO GLASS
The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, received the largest gift in its history when Ben and Natalie Heineman donated their entire collection of contemporary studio glass, valued at $9.5 million and assembled over 20 years. Tina Oldknow, curator of modern glass, describes the gift of 250 pieces as “one of the largest and finest private collections of contemporary studio glass in the United States, distinguished by the wide-ranging history that it represents and by its high level of connoisseurship.” The collection features all the movement’s stars— Harvey Littleton, Lino Tagliapietra, Howard Ben Tré, Toots Zynsky, Dale Chihuly and others. “The Heinemans acquired pieces made at different times over the course of these artists’ careers from the 1960s to the present, which is the best way to understand an individual artist’s body of work,” Oldknow says. The collection will be featured in a summer exhibition in 2009.
JOHN and MAUREEN HENDRICKS
GATEWAY, COLO. AND CHEVY CHASE, MD.
CLASSIC CARS
Marylanders John and Maureen Hendricks bought a remote ranch in Colorado in 1995, and soon realized that the nearest community, Gateway, was destined for ghost-town status without something to replace a dying, mining-based economy. The solution: Gateway Canyons, a small resort complex anchored by the Gateway Colorado Auto Museum. “I had my first sculptural art experience as a 7-year-old, the memorable occasion when my big sister’s boyfriend took me for a ride in Harley Earl’s latest design creation, a brand new 1958 Corvette,” says John, the chairman and founder of the Discovery Channel. The museum enables him to indulge his love of the “adventure machine” and pursue his dream-car acquisition list, which included, of course, a perfect ’58 Corvette. The museum features more than 40 great classic cars, spanning a century of automotive history and filling 30,000 square feet of galleries named “Mass Mobility,” “American Muscle” and “Custom Crazy.” Among the oldest is a 1906 Cadillac Model H Coupe with a wooden carriage. Among the hottest is the one-of-a-kind 1954 Olds F-88 concept car designed by Harley Earl that Hendricks bought at an Arizona car auction for a wellpublicized $3.24 million. Maureen (who favors the 1950 Packard Super 8 Victoria Convertible Coupe) makes and collects contemporary art quilts, owning more than 55 examples. She recalls her first quilting effort in 1985: “It’s amazing how a little bit off on every seam makes a quilt really uneven and hard to assemble. I still have that quilt so I can see how far I’ve come—plus it keeps me humble.” She is on the board of Studio Art Quilt Associates.
MARIELUISE HESSEL
JACKSON HOLE, WYO.
CONTEMPORARY ART
Bard College, a small liberal arts institution in upstate New York with strong ties to the arts, recently opened its Hessel Museum of Art—an event that can be traced back to Marieluise Hessel’s chance meeting with Bard president Leon Botstein on a trip to Russia organized by the Whitney Museum in the late 1980s. Botstein must have been persuasive because Hessel has been a patron ever since. In 1990, together with her then-husband Richard B. Black, she donated $8 million toward the construction of Bard’s Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture. The 17,000-square-foot Hessel Museum, part of CCS, is largely underwritten by Hessel and will house her collection on long-term loan: more than 1,700 paintings, sculpture, photographs, works on paper and video installations created since the 1960s by 900-plus artists. “I take great delight in thinking about the young curators going out into the world to educate others and make great exhibitions,” she says.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
CONTEMPORARY ART
Graham and Ann Gund’s collection of contemporary art ranges from five-star names to the not-yet-discovered. When the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston exhibited “A Private Vision: Contemporary Art from the Graham Gund Collection,” The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Gund is not the kind of collector who sticks to the big names and treats the others as amiable nobodies. He has taken a flyer on younger and less-known artists all over the country,” including artists like Scott Prior, Natalie Alper and Roy DeForest. The Gunds have been supporting Boston art institutions for decades. At the MFA, they established the endowed Ann and Graham Gund Director position and the Graham Gund Gallery, and at Harvard Gund created the Architecture Exhibition fund. They’ve loaned their art, supported museum acquisitions and opened their home to art fundraisers such as 2006 Blooming Art, which raised over $1 million for youth arts programs. Gund Partnership, his architecture firm, has designed buildings on many college campuses, most notably the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. Gund has been a trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and is a cofounder of the Nantucket Preservation Trust.
HUGH and MARIE HALFF
SAN ANTONIO
AMERICAN IMPRESSIONISTS
Adazzling collection of American Impressionist art graces the San Antonio home of Hugh and Marie Halff—26 paintings mostly from the 1880s to the early part of the 20th century. Following their first purchase 20 years ago—a Winslow Homer—the couple has acquired works by Childe Hassam, William Merritt Chase, John Singer Sargent, John Twachtman and Edward Hopper, among others. The complete collection was on view at the Smithsonian Institution American Art Museum early this winter. “An Impressionist Sensibility: The Halff Collection” was described by the museum as “one of the finest small private collections of late 19th- and early 20th-century American art.” This was the first time this art was seen publicly in its entirety, although the Halffs frequently lend their paintings. Immediately upon the closing of the Smithsonian exhibition, their two Venetian Sargents went straight to Adelson Galleries in New York. They are traveling with the Adelson exhibition, “Sargent’s Venice,” to the Museo Correr in Venice (March 24–July 22). The Metropolitan has exhibited Hassam’s “Clearing Sunset (Corner of Berkeley Street and Columbus Avenue)” and Chase’s “The Ring Toss.” “If it’s a good museum or a dealer we really like, we’re glad to lend our pictures,” says Hugh.
ANDREW and CHRISTINE HALL
FAIRFIELD, CONN.
CONTEMPORARY ART
Last summer a 25-foot-tall gray steel shed dominated the lawn of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut. It was “Velimir Chlebnikov,” an installation of 30 recent Anselm Kiefer paintings, acquired in London and loaned to the Aldrich by Andrew and Christine Hall. The British-born couple has assembled a remarkable collection comprising largely German neo-expressionist art—Georg Baselitz, A.R. Penck and Sigmar Polke among others— but also works by other hot contemporary names, such as Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly and Franceso Clemente. The Halls are full of enthusiasm: They flew to Baselitz’s castle in Germany and bought his entire personal collection of German contemporary art—120 huge works that filled 20 rooms. Not long after, the Halls bought 30 new Kiefer paintings and, directly from Baselitz, an additional 15 Baselitz paintings. They have so much art that a good part of is stored in Manhattan, where one hopes they get to visit it. The Halls have established the annual Hall Curatorial Fellowship at the Aldrich, which enables curators from abroad to curate and install an exhibition of art created within the past five years by an international artist.
ANDREW D. HEINEMAN
NEW YORK CITY
NAVAL WARSHIP MEMORABILIA
Retired attorney Andrew D. Heineman has amassed a unique body of naval warship information—an encyclopedic database of photographs and explanatory historical data for thousands of individual steam-steel ships from 1860 to the present. This mountain of material is maintained in 600 binders containing separate files for each ship. Though the collection concentrates on naval warships from the United States and England, it also includes Japan, Italy, France, Russia and Germany, plus all major ships from other countries. Heineman also has 300 ship models and many related books. “I began this collection at the start of World War II, when Dad gave us a copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships, and I’ve been unrelenting ever since,” he says. “I’ve gone through at least 10 pairs of scissors and bought a second apartment for the collection.” Heineman has promised this extraordinary collection to the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
BEN W. SR. and NATALIE HEINEMAN
CHICAGO
CONTEMPORARY STUDIO GLASS
The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, received the largest gift in its history when Ben and Natalie Heineman donated their entire collection of contemporary studio glass, valued at $9.5 million and assembled over 20 years. Tina Oldknow, curator of modern glass, describes the gift of 250 pieces as “one of the largest and finest private collections of contemporary studio glass in the United States, distinguished by the wide-ranging history that it represents and by its high level of connoisseurship.” The collection features all the movement’s stars— Harvey Littleton, Lino Tagliapietra, Howard Ben Tré, Toots Zynsky, Dale Chihuly and others. “The Heinemans acquired pieces made at different times over the course of these artists’ careers from the 1960s to the present, which is the best way to understand an individual artist’s body of work,” Oldknow says. The collection will be featured in a summer exhibition in 2009.
JOHN and MAUREEN HENDRICKS
GATEWAY, COLO. AND CHEVY CHASE, MD.
CLASSIC CARS
Marylanders John and Maureen Hendricks bought a remote ranch in Colorado in 1995, and soon realized that the nearest community, Gateway, was destined for ghost-town status without something to replace a dying, mining-based economy. The solution: Gateway Canyons, a small resort complex anchored by the Gateway Colorado Auto Museum. “I had my first sculptural art experience as a 7-year-old, the memorable occasion when my big sister’s boyfriend took me for a ride in Harley Earl’s latest design creation, a brand new 1958 Corvette,” says John, the chairman and founder of the Discovery Channel. The museum enables him to indulge his love of the “adventure machine” and pursue his dream-car acquisition list, which included, of course, a perfect ’58 Corvette. The museum features more than 40 great classic cars, spanning a century of automotive history and filling 30,000 square feet of galleries named “Mass Mobility,” “American Muscle” and “Custom Crazy.” Among the oldest is a 1906 Cadillac Model H Coupe with a wooden carriage. Among the hottest is the one-of-a-kind 1954 Olds F-88 concept car designed by Harley Earl that Hendricks bought at an Arizona car auction for a wellpublicized $3.24 million. Maureen (who favors the 1950 Packard Super 8 Victoria Convertible Coupe) makes and collects contemporary art quilts, owning more than 55 examples. She recalls her first quilting effort in 1985: “It’s amazing how a little bit off on every seam makes a quilt really uneven and hard to assemble. I still have that quilt so I can see how far I’ve come—plus it keeps me humble.” She is on the board of Studio Art Quilt Associates.
MARIELUISE HESSEL
JACKSON HOLE, WYO.
CONTEMPORARY ART
Bard College, a small liberal arts institution in upstate New York with strong ties to the arts, recently opened its Hessel Museum of Art—an event that can be traced back to Marieluise Hessel’s chance meeting with Bard president Leon Botstein on a trip to Russia organized by the Whitney Museum in the late 1980s. Botstein must have been persuasive because Hessel has been a patron ever since. In 1990, together with her then-husband Richard B. Black, she donated $8 million toward the construction of Bard’s Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture. The 17,000-square-foot Hessel Museum, part of CCS, is largely underwritten by Hessel and will house her collection on long-term loan: more than 1,700 paintings, sculpture, photographs, works on paper and video installations created since the 1960s by 900-plus artists. “I take great delight in thinking about the young curators going out into the world to educate others and make great exhibitions,” she says.
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