A collection begins
with a person.

Russian avant-garde / Private archive

Edik Natanov

The Natanov Collection’s own account dates its formation to 1995. Its digital archive connects artwork records with exhibition material and research documentation. Our dossier examines how those different kinds of evidence can be read together.

Read our detailed dossier ↗

Venice / Modern art

Peggy Guggenheim

Guggenheim presented her collection at the 1948 Venice Biennale and began opening her Venetian home to the public in 1951. Her story brings patronage, domestic space and the institutional life of modern art into the same frame.

Thessaloniki / Russian avant-garde

George Costakis

The Costakis Collection is central to MOMus’s work on avant-garde art from the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, particularly 1900–1930. Preservation, scholarship and public access are joined within the museum’s remit.

Moscow / French modernism

Sergei Shchukin

Shchukin is one of the major Russian collectors considered in Fondation Louis Vuitton’s historical exhibitions. Its curator-led comparison with the Morozov collection offers a useful way into two distinct approaches to modern painting.

Moscow / French and Russian art

Ivan & Mikhail Morozov

The Morozov brothers assembled French and Russian modern art. Fondation Louis Vuitton’s 2021–2022 exhibition reunited more than 200 works, placing the brothers’ collecting within a wider history of artistic exchange.

Riehen / Modern and contemporary art

Ernst & Hildy Beyeler

The Beyelers made their collection publicly accessible at Fondation Beyeler in 1997. The museum offers a route from personal selection to sustained public encounter, with modern and contemporary art at its centre.

Pasadena / European and Asian art

Norton Simon

Over three decades, Simon brought together European art from the Renaissance to the twentieth century and South and Southeast Asian art spanning two millennia. The collection makes a case for looking across periods and geographies.

New York / Minimal and conceptual art

Dorothy & Herbert Vogel

The Vogels offer a counterpoint to the familiar image of the wealthy collector. The National Gallery of Art’s account follows their collecting and generosity, showing how sustained attention can shape a consequential body of art.

Paris / Contemporary art

François Pinault

In his published interview for the Bourse de Commerce, Pinault describes the emotional force of discovering a work and his wish to share that experience with visitors. His account connects private choice to a public setting.