Victor Ganz

Victor Ganz ( born April 7, 1913 in New York City; † October 26, 1987 ibid ) was one of the most important collectors of contemporary art in the 20th century.

Biography

Victor Wendell Full was born on April 7, 1913 in New York City. The son of Saul Ganz and his wife, née Ruth Wendell, attended public schools and the City College of New York, before joining the D. Lisner Company, a fashion jewelry company that had been founded by his uncle in 1875. Lisner costume jewelery has been sold all over the United States and employed a small sales team of about ten representatives throughout the country.

As president of the company, Victor proved Quite a creative mind and dealt with every aspect of jewelery making. Every week he commuted between New York City and Providence, to monitor the production. After his designer, Sidney Welicky, had gone into retirement, took over full with Iraida Garey, the deputy head of product development, and even the responsibility for framing. His style was evident everywhere, from the actual jewelry to sale packaging and advertising.

In 1942, Victor married Full Sally Wile. On 26 October 1987, he died at 74 at his home in New York City of lung cancer. His wife died at the age of 85 on 27 January 1997, also at home. They had one son and three daughters.

Collection activity

In his youth, bought whole watercolors by Louis Eilshemius and Jules Pascin and a painting by Raphael Soyer. Thus his fascination with contemporary art was awakened.

Whole had almost no education and was largely self-taught. In the 1930s he submitted to strict rules in order to learn more about art. Every Saturday, he traveled as far as possible to get in and around New York City to visit exhibitions and art fairs. Although he made ​​contacts with artists, dealers and curators, he developed his knowledge from studying the works themselves

In 1941, what started all- sometimes called " a love affair with Picasso " referred to when he made his first picture of this artist bought for $ 7,000, Le Rêve. The image has since made some headlines: Steve Wynn, the current owner of this image, came in 2007 with the elbow in the picture and produced a 15 cm long crack while he showed the painting some prominent guests. The occasion was the announcement of the sale of this image for 139 million U.S. dollars to Steven A. Cohen, which would have been the highest price ever paid for a painting. Wynn had acquired the painting for an estimated 60 million U.S. dollars by Wolfgang Flöttl, who in turn had bought it on November 11, 1987 at Christie's from the collection full of just over 48 million U.S. dollars. By this mishap burst the business. Meanwhile, the painting for $ 90,000 has been restored.

Since the marriage in 1942 Viktor turned full together with his wife an important Picasso collection together. In particular, they acquired a whole series of outstanding large -format paintings of Picasso, mainly from the thirties. Although the spouses stayed much on their privacy, presented their Picasso collection but as an illustration available, so that the best works, including, of course, especially Le Rêve, could be reproduced in many picture books and her name for Picasso lovers a term was.

The pictures hanging in their apartment, which was not particularly large; their children found that they were much better in the presentation at Christie's advantage. Your friends might not approve of their preferences; some insisted on sitting with his back to Le Rêve, when they were invited to dinner. Personally, they have made Picasso twice; he was aware what rank had their collection. They were the largest lender for the Picasso retrospective in 1980 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Public work

When they realized that Picasso had acquired the status of an Old Master or for them was prohibitive, they began Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Frank Stella to collect later. As these artists were themselves established, the collector couple turned again to the young and unknown artists Eva Hesse, Dorothea Rockburne and Mel Bochner. Both husband and wife work together as equal partners and proved as much connoisseurship that museum people were impressed.

The couple Quite acquired some masterpieces at very low prices. They bought particular works of American artists with whom they also became friends. Your understanding of leading minds such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg led to appointments to boards of museums and associations. After his retirement, Victor devoted his whole time and energy to public arts funding. Since 1981 he was a member of the board of the Whitney Museum, and its vice-president when he died; he was the only member of the Supervisory Board, which had constantly been involved in all buying commissions. He was also chairman of the Battery Park City Fine Arts Committee of the establishment in 1982 until his death. In 1985 he was a member of the Museum Advisory Council of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Financing

1956 bought the couple directly from Picasso's dealer Daniel -Henry Kahnweiler a whole series of en bloc: The Women of Algiers from 1954 to 1955, variations according to The Women of Algiers by Eugène Delacroix. By today's standards, the family was not rich; the 15 works costing 212,500 U.S. dollars, and since the couple this issue really could not afford, they sold 10 of them for 138,000 dollars to dealers and museums; nevertheless their collection remained the largest Picasso collection in the USA.

Thirty years later, the market situation was completely different. The entire collection has been appraised by Christie's at 125 million, Le Rêve alone 30 million. The most important work from the series of variations, called version O, was estimated before the auction at 10-12 million dollars and sold for 31.9 million U.S. dollars in a London dealer.

On 11 November 1997, the entire collection was sold at auction under enormous public sympathy at Christie's and achieved revenues of over 206 million U.S. dollars, with Le Rêve scored the top result, almost a quarter of the total. The painting Woman Seated in an Armchair (Eva ) from 1913 was sold at an estimated price of 20 million (not including commission fee ) for 24.7 million ( with commission fee ); through the mediation of art dealer Heinz Berggruen, the couple had purchased the painting in 1967 for $ 200,000 from a Swiss private collector.

Heinz Berggruen itself offered on a large painting from the year 1942 ( Reclining Nude ), the estimated 4 to 6 million and sold for 14.5 million was; it is now part of his collection Berggruen in Berlin. The only major work of art that the widow had bought alone, an abstract painting without title after a Picasso from 1938, was bought back by the dealer Leo Castelli, from which they had acquired with little loss. Except for the work of Rauschenberg, which was estimated at 3-4 million, but remained lying at the lower limit of 2.4 million, everything was sold.

To put this auction set a new record in the proceeds of a private collection, which stood at 123.4 million U.S. dollar since 1989 ( for the collection of John Dorrance Jr., Campbell Soup heir ). For the entire collection put on the whole reportedly less than 2 million dollars, which would correspond to a return of over 10,000 % if the figures quoted were right. However, since only the last acquired image for 607,500 U.S. dollars was auctioned and the widow had originally paid even more for it, this number games are not very credible.