Heidi Göess-Horten, Austrian Billionaire with World-Class Art Collection, Dies at 81

Heidi Göess-Horten, an Austrian outlet store heiress who simply previously this month opened a long-awaited personal museum in Vienna, has actually passed away at81 An agent for that museum, the Heidi Horten Collection, stated that Göess-Horten passed away on Sundaay in her house in Lake Wörthersee.

” A generous, warm-hearted and smart lady has actually died today,” the museum composed in a declaration. “She will be kept in mind for her manifold dedication, above all to the arts and to sports, particularly as president of the KAC,” an Austrian hockey group.

Göess-Horten was not simply among the leading collectors in Austria however worldwide writ big. With 700 operates in her holdings, she has actually ranked on the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors note each year because2018 It was not up until just recently that most were conscious of the depth of her collection at all.

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In 2018, a proving of her holdings went on view at the Leopold Museum in Vienna, including crucial paintings by Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Franz Marc, and more that had actually been generated throughout the years. It was the very first time the general public had actually seen her collection, which had actually long been produced away in her house. The Swiss publication Widewalls called the exhibit “awesome.”

” The type of art, I am surrounded by and which I deal with, has actually appeared art history,” Göess-Horten composed in the exhibit brochure for the program. “Hence, my dream of sharing this experience with other individuals has actually grown progressively.”

At the start of this month, Göess-Horten opened the Heidi Horten Collection in Vienna. While the extra opening hang includes a few of the blue-chip artists that Göess-Horten has actually been gathering throughout the years, it is normally richer in Austrian artists, much of whom operate in a conceptual mode. Amongst them are Philipp Timischl, Constantin Luser, Erwin Wurm, Markus Schinwald, and Brigitte Kowanz.

The Heidi Horten Collection stated that, to honor its name’s death, it would use complimentary admission for the next week beginning on Monday.

Heidi Göess-Horten was born under the name Heidi Jelinek in 1941 in Vienna. In 1966, she wed Helmut Horten, the mogul behind the German outlet store chain Horten AG. When he passed away in 1987, Göess-Horten acquired his fortune. She later on wed Jean-March Charmat in 1994, and she remarried one more time after that, to Karl Anton, the count of Göess, in 2013.

With Helmut Horten, Göess-Horten had actually started gathering. Some years after his death, she started doing so more seriously. In 1996, her purchasing routines ended up being public when she purchased $22 million in art at a single Sotheby’s auction in London. Agnes Husslein-Arco, the Sotheby’s Vienna expert who assisted her purchase those works by phone, now directs the Heidi Horten Collection.

Göess-Horten was apparently among the wealthiest individuals on the planet at the time of her death, with Forbes reporting her net worth to be $2.9 billion this year.

In addition to her art collection, Göess-Horten was reported to own among the world’s biggest motor private yachts, the Carinthia VII, according to Boat International The luxury yacht was offered this year with a $126 million cost.

She did not just utilize her cash to purchase art and private yachts. Austrian outlets have actually reported that Horten offered the ice hockey group KAC 3 million euros yearly. The Stadthalle, the arena where KAC plays in Klagenfurt, Austria, is anticipated to bear her name when its remodelling is total.

Meanwhile, Göess-Horten was just recently the topic of some debate in Austria when Der Standard exposed that she had actually contributed almost EUR1 million to the conservative-leaning Austrian People’s Party in between 2018 and2019 (In Austria, considerable contributions from personal entities to political celebrations are reasonably unusual, and should be openly divulged if they go beyond a specific quantity.) Those contributions were made in percentages so regarding prevent needing to report them. Her attorney stated the contributions were lawfully certified.

According to the information that Der Standard reported, Göess-Horten was without a doubt the greatest donor to the celebration throughout that time duration. After at first not reacting to ask for remark, Göess-Horten informed the German publication Süddeutsche Zeitung that her contributions were “well-intentioned” however that she would no longer contribute to any political celebration. She was never ever lawfully prosecuted for the contributions, regardless of some political leaders’ needs for her to be.

Up up until completion, Göess-Horten continued purchasing art, and she saw her collection as the core part of her tradition.

” I understood after the very first public discussion of my collection that I wished to maintain the works for posterity and share a treasure with individuals that has actually been with me in my personal life for several years and offered me such joy,” she informed ARTnews in an e-mail recently.

” That’s why I see my museum as a location of discovery, of sensual experience, of the pleasure of art– since that’s what art has actually been and still is for me: a crucial source of delight!”