Frank Stella, Gray Scramble, 1968–69; Joel Shapiro, Untitled, 1983; Ellsworth Kelly, Green–Red, 1964. Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Venice. Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012.
Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection
May 22–September 16, 2013
Peggy Guggenheim Collection
701 Dorsoduro
30123 Venice, Italy
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“Art is almost like a religion. It is what I believe in. It is what gives my life dimension beyond the material world we live in.”
Hannelore B. Schulhof
Through September 16 the Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection is on view in its entirety at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. In 2012 eighty works of European and American painting, sculpture and drawing of the decades after 1945 were added to the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in Venice thanks to a bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, who collected the works with her husband Rudolph B. Schulhof. They reside permanently at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.
Hannelore and Rudolph Schulhof shared with Peggy Guggenheim, whom they met in 1954 at the Venice Biennale, and whom they admired as a kindred spirit, the conviction that they should collect the art of their own time. They did so with a passion comparable to hers. Afro, Alberto Burri, Alexander Calder, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Eduardo Chillida, Tony Cragg, Ellsworth Kelly, Willem de Kooning, Lucio Fontana, Jean Dubuffet, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Anish Kapoor, Mark Rothko, Frank Stella, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, are only some of the artists whose works are in the donation. When added to the Cubist, abstract, Surrealist, and early American Abstract Expressionist art in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and to Peggy’s own purchases of post-war art, the reach of the Venice museum will be extended into the 1970s and even 1980s.
Certain works add significantly to the Foundation’s holdings of artists already present in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Works by post-war Italians will be particularly appropriate for the Venice-based museum. Perhaps most importantly the works by New York school artists will represent the United States in the generations after Peggy Guggenheim’s heroic championing of what came to be known as American Abstract Expressionism at her New York gallery, Art of This Century, and after her departure from New York in 1947. Post-painterly Abstraction painting and Minimal art will be on view permanently at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection for the first time. The Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Sculpture Garden will present works by Tony Caro, Barbara Hepworth, Jenny Holzer, Anish Kapoor, Sol LeWitt, Isamu Noguchi, and others.
Richard Armstrong, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, commented, “Rudy and Hannelore Schulhof were rare collectors, discerning and empathetic. Having these exceptional objects on view in Venice richly updates the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.”
Michael P. Schulhof, son of the collectors, commented on behalf of the Schulhof family: “Venice and Peggy Guggenheim had a strong influence on how the Schulhof Collection came to be formed. It is fitting that these works will take their place at the museum and add to the many wonderful reasons why Venice plays such an important role in the world of modern art.”
Hannelore Schulhof grew up in pre-War Germany, which she left shortly before the outbreak of World War II. She was joined by her Czech-born fiancé Rudolph Schulhof in Brussels, where they married. From there they travelled together to the United States. The Schulhofs were praised as collectors from the 1960s for the refinement and discernment with which they brought together art from both the European and North American continents. Celebrated benefactors of the arts, each of them served on numerous museum boards and foundations, including CIMAM and the American Federation of Arts. Mr. Schulhof was a trustee of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation from 1993 until his death in 1999, while Mrs. Schulhof was a Charter (Founding) Member of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection Advisory Board in 1980.
Philip Rylands said: “Peggy Guggenheim’s departure from New York and the beginning of her Venetian life in 1947 marked the close of the heroic phase of her collecting. As a consequence, European and American postwar art is only sporadically represented in her collection. The Schulhofs began their collecting where Peggy left off, so their collection represents a perfect fit, extending and enriching seamlessly the Venice museum’s post-war art with great works by great artists.”
