Marieluise Hessel

Works From The Collection Of Marieluise Hessel

Photo courtesy MarieLuise Hessel

Gerhard Richter, "Untitled" (1967)

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The bulk of Marieluise Hessels world-class collection of some 1,700 contemporary works (ranging from Carl Andre to Kara Walker) is on permanent loan to the Hessel Museum, which is due to open in mid-November on the campus of Bard College. A leading philanthropist, Hessel made the founding gift of $8 million to establish Bards renowned Center for Curatorial Studies in 1990; she recently gave another $8 million toward the museum named in her honor.

My First Acquisition:

This is very honest, but the very first work I acquired was a Victor Vasarely, and the second was a Horst Antes. But when I discovered the Heiner Friedrich Gallery in Munich, I got involved with this very serious group there, and they told me, These two works have got to go!

They told me to give them to them, and they could sell them, and then I could buy some real art.

So my real first purchase was a Gerhard Richter, a beautiful painting thats actually still in my New York apartment. I vaguely recall that it was $500 or $700. Nobody wanted it. I couldnt afford Pop Art at the time. That was already $4,000-5,000 in the mid-1960s. There was no way I could afford that kind of money.

That moment, the mid-60s, was such an important time in Germany, and the Heiner Friedrich Gallery in Munich was a real center. There were two or three other galleries, in Cologne and Dusseldorf as well, and they all practiced art like a religion. So anything that didnt fit in had to go.

For example, I remember there was a man in Darmstadt who was an industrialist in his 70s, and they convinced him to sell his Impressionist collection and buy all the Pop artists. I was in my early 20s, so I was very easily convinced of what I was supposed to do, and the Vasarely and the Antes were not the right thing. Im glad actuallyIm very gladthat I did what I did; and Im glad that I had my initiation at the Heiner Friedrich Gallery.