Heidi Goëss-Horten © Ouriel Morgensztern
“I am proud, with my collection and the construction of the museum, to have created something lasting, which future generations will also be able to experience when they visit my museum and take joy in the art that has given me such joy for so long.”
Heidi Goëss-Horten
The Collection
After the death of her first husband, Helmut Horten, in 1987, Heidi Goëss-Horten (1941-2022) began to build up an art collection of international standing with great sensitivity and passion. Over the last few decades, this has developed into an impressive collection of several hundred paintings, sculptures and prints. When building up her collection, it was always important to the collector not to be subject to any fashions. Heidi Goëss-Horten has always lived with the works, surrounding herself with them in her home. As a passionate collector, her personal relationship to and individual engagement with the works of art was important to her.
While individual works of German Expressionism, for example by Emil Nolde and Erich Heckel, or paintings of international modernism, including key works by Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso, date back to the time of Heidi Horten's marriage to Helmut Horten, the clear focus of today's collection is on works acquired in the 1990s.
The scope of the collection had changed significantly as a result, with names that had not previously been represented, including Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Joan Miró, Max Pechstein, Carl Hofer, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Klee, René Magritte, Fernand Léger, Niki de Saint Phalle, Egon Schiele, Lucio Fontana, Jean Dubuffet, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Yves Klein and Georg Baselitz. Artists whose works are undoubtedly among the highlights of the collection today.
In later years, Heidi Goëss-Horten began acquiring important works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein in order to create a focus on Pop Art within the collection. In the course of her collecting activities, Goëss-Horten increasingly devoted herself to the work of contemporary artists. As a result, groundbreaking works by Damien Hirst, Niki de Saint Phalle, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter found their way into the collection early on. Moreover, the Heidi Horten Collection now comprises not only paintings and works of graphic art, but also a striking sculpture park that has grown impressively over the years and will be showcased at the museum.
Today, the collection offers a profound overview of the development of 20th and 21st century art. Today, the Heidi Horten Collection unites the Who's Who of art history from the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, from classical modernism to contemporary art.
The Heidi Horten Collection Today
Today, with its main concentrations on the art of “Vienna 1900”, German and international Expressionism, Arte Povera, European postwar art and Pop art, the Heidi Horten Collection is a panoply of images with the scope of a museum. What began as a passion, now represents a foray into the art history of the last one hundred years. Surveying the collection, one can appreciate how particular areas of interest formed, how artists have influenced one another, and the revolutionary spirit inherent in the oeuvre of every single artist.
By founding a museum, Heidi Goëss-Horten is taking a step towards a cultural future for the collection that will influence the canon of public art history. She also joins the time-honoured ranks of collectors who, through their vision, have created places for public engagement with art. True to the character of a private collection, these are very personal spaces whose purpose is to foster fresh approaches to art for all interested visitors.
In light of the discussion about Helmut Horten's build-up of assets and business in the context of “Aryanization” during the “Third Reich”, which has been smouldering since the 1970s and will intensify in 2023, the museum's management and the Collection team have recognized the moral necessity for the museum to critically examine this past and its relevance to the Collection's work as part of a historical responsibility.
