There are numerous indicators that the artwork world has reached the tip of an period, and the passing of arts patron and philanthropist Agnes Gund on Friday, September 19 is without doubt one of the most definitive. Her demise marks the departure of a complete era of dedicated collectors, leaving the business to grapple with who will step into their place and maintain a system that has grown huge and unwieldy.
Gund died at age 87, as reported by the New York Instances. The trigger has not been disclosed, although her daughter Catherine Gund confirmed her passing.
A relentless supporter of artwork and tradition, Gund was among the many most influential U.S. patrons of the previous half-century (even taking a spot on our 2023 Enterprise of Artwork Energy Listing). As president emerita of the Museum of Trendy Artwork, the place she served as president for greater than 11 years, she performed a transformative function in increasing the museum’s attain and assortment, immediately serving to elevate the funds that made its most up-to-date enlargement doable.
She sat on quite a few boards, supported generations of artists and championed artwork as a device for training, fairness and systemic change. She reportedly gave away two-thirds of her property every year to maintain New York’s cultural life and was a fixture at galas, together with these of El Museo del Barrio, YoungArts, The Kitchen and MoMA PS1, the place she was seen this summer season.
Her assortment included among the best names of the previous century—artists she not solely supported however knew personally. Masterpieces by Mark Rothko, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Jasper Johns, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Yayoi Kusama and Louise Bourgeois (and the listing simply goes on) fashioned a part of an encyclopedic assortment that spanned the breadth of up to date artwork throughout media and kinds.
Gund had already donated a whole lot of works to MoMA, which honored her with the exhibition “Studio Go to: Chosen Presents from Agnes Gund,” showcasing round 50 of the greater than 800 works she gave. In complete, over 900 artworks from her assortment have been gifted or promised to public establishments nationwide. As for what’s left, it stays to be seen which public sale home will safe this trophy property.
She was additionally a longtime advocate for arts training and social justice. In 1977 she based “Studio in a College,” an modern program that positioned skilled artists in New York public faculties, inspiring tens of hundreds of youngsters. She prolonged her civic affect by serving on the New York State Council on the Arts and as chair of the Cultural Affairs Advisory Fee of New York Metropolis.
In 2017 she offered her beloved Roy Lichtenstein Masterpiece to hedge fund investor Steven Cohen for $165 million to launch Artwork for Justice, a catalytic six-year fund concentrating on the racial inequities of mass incarceration. The fund sunsetted in 2023 after distributing greater than $127 million in grants. “Agnes just isn’t finished,” Helena Huang, Artwork for Justice’s undertaking director, advised Observer on the time, noting Gund’s rising deal with reproductive rights and her enduring concern for the state of the world.
In November 2023 she offered one other Lichtenstein, directing greater than $2 million to the Groundswell Fund, which advocates for reproductive rights, and to Michigan’s Reproductive Freedom for All poll measure. “She would say that there’s much less artwork to promote,” Huang commented, when requested whether or not Gund would proceed parting with works for charity. “However she’ll proceed to leverage all the pieces that she has.”
Who was Agnes Gund?
Agnes Gund was born on August 13, 1938 in Cleveland. Her father, George Gund II, constructed a fortune in actual property, brewing and investing and served as president of the Cleveland Belief Firm, Ohio’s largest financial institution. After his demise in 1966, she inherited a considerable belief and shortly bought a Henry Moore sculpture, starting what would develop into a group of some 2,000 works.
Her ardour for artwork started in childhood with visits to the Cleveland Museum of Artwork and deepened at Miss Porter’s College in Farmington, Conn., the place she enrolled after her mom’s demise in 1954. “I had a magical artwork historical past instructor who didn’t simply provide the artist’s title and the date of the image; she confirmed you the way to have a look at art work,” she advised Life journal in 2010.
Gund graduated from Connecticut School for Ladies (now Connecticut School) in 1960 with a level in historical past. Three years later she married Albrecht “Brec” Saalfield, a private-school instructor and inheritor to the Saalfield Publishing Firm. The wedding led to divorce, as did a second marriage to Daniel Shapiro, a lawyer and instructor. She had 4 kids with Saalfield—Catherine, David, Anna and Jessica—and can also be survived by her brothers Gordon and Geoffrey Gund, her sister, the theater producer Louise Gund, and 12 grandchildren.
The passing of Agnes Gund leaves a profound void in New York’s artwork world and past, sharpening the query of who will carry ahead the work of her era and guarantee the way forward for cultural patronage.
