A Life of Collecting

Book excerpt: Unlike most collectors of European modernism, the Ganzes had the breadth of imagination to realize that certain young Americans were the true heirs of Picasso. With an unerring eye (sharpened by exhaustive study), they chose Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella at the beginning of their careers, and then moved on to champion Eva Hesse. In this book of essays by John Richardson, Leo Steinberg, David Sylvester, Judith Goldman, Roberta Bernstein, Linda Shearer, and others, we learn about the art and artists in the collection, as well as the risks and commitments the Ganzes made in establishing these artists we now hail as among the masters of contemporary art.