Victor Ganz

Victor Wendell Ganz (born April 7, 1913 in New York City , † October 26, 1987 there ) was a collector of contemporary art in the 20th century. Together with his wife Sally, he was particularly famous for his collection of paintings by Pablo Picasso .

biography

Victor Ganz was born in New York City on April 7, 1913. The son of Saul Ganz and his wife Ruth, b. Wendell, attended public schools and the City College of New York before joining the D. Lisner Company, a costume jewelry company founded by his uncle in 1875. Lisner costume jewelry was sold throughout the United States and employed a sales force of about ten agents.

As president of the company, Victor Ganz showed himself to be a creative spirit and engaged in every aspect of jewelry making. Every week he commuted between New York City and Providence to oversee production. After his designer Sidney Welicky retired, Ganz and Iraida Garey, Deputy Head of Product Development, also took on responsibility for the design. His style became evident everywhere, from the actual jewelry to the retail packaging and advertising.

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

Collection activity

In his youth, Ganz bought watercolors by Louis Eilshemius and Jules Pascin and a painting by Raphael Soyer . This aroused his fascination for contemporary art.

Ganz was largely self-taught. In the 1930s, he put strict rules on himself to learn more about art. Every Saturday he traveled as far as possible to visit exhibitions and art fairs in and around New York City. Although he made contacts with artists, dealers and curators, he developed his knowledge from studying the works himself.

In 1941 began what Ganz called "a love affair with Picasso" . For $ 7,000, he bought Le Rêve, his first painting by this artist. The picture made headlines in the following years: Steve Wynn , the current owner of the painting, poked the picture with his elbow in 2007 and produced a six-inch tear while showing the painting to some celebrity guests. The occasion was the announcement of the sale of the painting to Steven A. Cohen for $ 139 million , the highest price ever paid for a painting. Wynn had acquired the painting for an estimated US $ 60 million from Wolfgang Flöttl , who in turn had bought it at Christie's from the Ganz collection on November 11, 1987 for a little over US $ 48 million. However, due to Wynn's mishap, the deal did not materialize. The painting was subsequently restored for $ 90,000.

Since their marriage in 1942, Viktor and Sally Ganz have put together an important Picasso collection. In particular, they acquired a number of large-format paintings by Picasso, mainly from the 1930s. Although the couple were very careful about their privacy, they made their Picasso collection available as illustrations, so that the best works, including Le Rêve , were reproduced in many illustrated books and their name became a household name.

The pictures hung in her apartment of modest dimensions; however, her children found that Christie's rooms looked better at them. Some friends did not approve of their preferences; some insisted on sitting with their backs to Le Rêve when they were invited to dinner. Viktor and Sally Ganz met Picasso personally twice; the artist was aware of the status of their collection. They were the biggest lenders for the 1980 Picasso retrospective 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 was unaffordable for them, they began collecting Jasper Johns , Robert Rauschenberg and later Frank Stella . When these artists were established for their part, the collector couple turned to the young and unknown artists Eva Hesse , Dorothea Rockburne and Mel Bochner . Both spouses worked together as equal partners and impressed numerous museum people with their knowledge.

The Ganz couple acquired some masterpieces at very low prices. In particular, they bought works by American artists who they also became friends with. Her understanding of leading figures like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg led to appointments to supervisory boards of museums and associations. After his retirement, Victor Ganz devoted all of his time and energy to public art funding. Since 1981 he was a member of the board of directors of the Whitney Museum and its vice-president when he died; he was the only member of the supervisory board who had participated in all of the buying committees. He also chaired the Battery Park City Fine Arts Committee from its inception in 1982 until his death. In 1985 he was a member of the Museum Council of the National Endowment for the Arts .

financing

In 1956 the couple bought a whole series en bloc directly from Picasso's dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler : The Women of Algiers from 1954 and 1955, variations based on The Women of Algiers by Eugène Delacroix . The family was not rich by today's standards; the 15 works cost $ 212,500, and since the couple could not actually afford this edition, they sold ten of them for $ 138,000 to dealers and museums; nevertheless, their collection remained the largest Picasso collection in the United States.

Thirty years later, the market situation was completely different. The entire collection was valued at $ 125 million by Christie's auction house , with Le Rêve alone at $ 30 million. The most important work in the Variations series, called Version O , was estimated at US $ 10 to 12 million prior to the auction and sold to a London dealer for US $ 31.9 million.

On November 11, 1997, the entire collection was auctioned off at Christie's with tremendous public interest, raising proceeds of over $ 206 million, with Le Rêve achieving the top result, almost a quarter of the total. The 1913 painting Woman Seated in an Armchair (Eva ) was auctioned at an estimate of $ 20 million (excluding commission) for $ 24.7 million (including commission); Through the mediation of the art dealer Heinz Berggruen , the couple acquired the painting in 1967 for US $ 200,000 from a Swiss private collector.

Heinz Berggruen himself bid for a large-format painting from 1942 ( Reclining Nude ), which was valued at $ 4 to 6 million and sold for $ 14.5 million; it is now part of his Berggruen collection in Berlin. The only major work of art that the widow had bought alone, an abstract painting without a title after a Picasso from 1938, was bought back at a small loss from the dealer Leo Castelli , from whom she had acquired it. All but one Rauschenberg work, valued at $ 3 to 4 million but remained at the lower limit of $ 2.4 million, was all sold.

This auction set a new record for private collection proceeds, which has stood at $ 123.4 million since 1989 (for the collection of John Dorrance Jr., Campell Soup heir). According to their own statements, the couple invested less than 2 million US dollars for the entire collection, which would correspond to a return of over 10,000%. But since the last picture acquired was auctioned for 607,500 US dollars and the widow originally paid even more for it, these figures are not very credible.

As part of the revelations about the so-called Panama Papers , it became known that sales deals for the most valuable paintings had been contractually agreed months before the auction of the Ganz collection. The offshore company Simsbury International Corp., located on the island of Niue , closed. The entrepreneur Joe Lewis signed an agreement in advance with the Christie's subsidiary Spink & Son and committed, among other things, to the purchase of 100 paintings for a total price of 168 million US dollars.

literature

• Michael Fitzgerald: A Life of Collecting: Victor and Sally Ganz. Christie's, New York 1997, ISBN 978-0-8109-6358-0

Individual evidence

1. ^ Susan Klein: For the Love of Lisner Jewelry . Lisner Jewelry. Retrieved February 8, 2009.
2. ^ ^{A b c d e} John Russell: W. Ganz, Art Collector And Official of the Whitney. In: New York Times, October 27, 1987, accessed September 8, 2010.
3. ↑ Nick Paumgarten: The $ 40-Million Elbow . The New Yorker. Retrieved February 9, 2009.
4. ↑ Nora Ephron: My Weekend in Vegas . Huffington Post. Retrieved February 9, 2009.
5. ^ Enrique Mallen, On-line Picasso Project: Chat dévorant un oiseau (Chat à l'oiseau).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. OPP.39: 068, April 1939, oil on linen, 97x129 cm.  
6. ↑ Enrique Mallen, On-line Picasso Project: Nature morte avec saucisse du sang (Nature morte avec boudin).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. OPP.41: 002, May 10, 1941, oil on linen, 89x65 cm.  
7. ↑ Christopher Michaud: Foremost Collection Of Picassos Heads For Auction  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Yahoo News (Reuters), November 6, 1987, quoted from On-Line Picasso Project , accessed September 8, 2010.  
8. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Carol Vogel: Prized Picasso Leads Collection to Record $ 206-Million Auction  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: The New York Times, November 11, 1997, quoted from On-Line Picasso Project .  
9. ^ Charlie Finch: royal flush. In: artnet , accessed September 8, 2010.
10. ↑ Alexandra A Jopp: The East, the West, Delacroix and Picasso. ( Memento of November 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) March 29, 2010, accessed September 8, 2010.
11. ↑ Enrique Mallen, On-line Picasso Project: Comprehensive Illustrated Catalog 1954, Painting Drawing Watercolor Gouache Pastel.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved September 8, 2010.  
12. ↑ Enrique Mallen, On-line Picasso Project: Comprehensive Illustrated Catalog 1955, Painting Drawing Watercolor Gouache Pastel.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved September 8, 2010.  
13. ^ Enrique Mallen, On-line Picasso Project: Les femmes d'Alger (d'après Delacroix) XV.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. OPP.55: 001, February 14, 1955, oil on linen, 114x146 cm.  
14. ^ Norma Quarles, Reuters: Picasso headlines record-setting art auction. CNN, November 11, 1997, accessed September 8, 2010.
15. ^ Enrique Mallen, On-line Picasso Project: Femme en chemise assise dans un fauteuil.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. OPP.13: 001, autumn 1913, oil on linen, 150x99 cm.  
16. ^ Enrique Mallen, On-line Picasso Project: Nu couché.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. OPP.42: 025, September 30th 1942, oil on linen, 130x195 cm.  
17. ↑ Juliette Garside, Jake Bernstein and Holly Watt: How offshore firm helped billionaire change the art world for ever in the Guardian on April 7, 2016, accessed on April 7, 2016.
18. ↑ Jake Bernstein: The Art of Secrecy - Locked in the files of a Panama law firm are the answers to mysteries involving Van Goghs, Picassos, Rembrandts and other masterworks on the ICIJ website of April 7, 2016, accessed on April 7, 2016 .