What it raised to raise a $ 3 billion modern art collection

In 1975, Donna Stein embarked on a semi-secret, two-year effort to build a contemporary art collection for the Iranian empire.

Prior to her appointment as part of the empire’s private secretariat, Stein was an assistant curator in the print and illustration department at MoMA and received little guidance before and during her tenure there. in Tehran.

There was no budget (“no figure available, and I doubt it will be clearer,” a colleague wrote before she started work) and there were no real buying guidelines. “My suggestions for buying should incorporate contemporary art history,” she writes in her new book The Empress and I: How an Old Empire used to collect, reject and rediscover modern art (Skira, $ 45). “Ultimately, the collection would encompass the full spectrum of technical opportunities in artmaking.”

Stein, who was recently deputy director of the Wende Museum in California, has written the book, she says in the future, because “my bosses at the Private Secretariat, to which I have referred named (as well as subsequent carers The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art where the collection is still in deep storage) has gained a great deal of credit for my beauty choices. ”

So, she continues, “I finally wrote The Empress and me to correct the table. ”

Using her own letters as documents, Stein tells a story of a department working in secrecy and reduced to corruption, nonetheless find some of the greatest works of art of the 20th century. These jobs would have been in the public domain for just two years before the fall of the Shah in 1979.

By telling her own side of the story and correcting any possible mistakes in circulation, Stein animates and infuses a collection that has grown exponentially in value – there are estimates contemporary puts it at $ 3 billion – if not historically incorporated over the past half – century.

Receiving the Collection

Stein ‘s ownership process could be generously described as haphazard. For her detailed research reports, Stein’s ex-political leaders made the final decision about getting a job.

“It was my duty as a person to establish quality, value, rarity,” Stein says in a telephone interview. “I was never part of the negotiation process.”

As a result, much of The Empress and me will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of the 20th century art market – the legendary sellers Ernst Beyeler, Eugene Thaw, and Leo Castelli will be appearing – but it might feel a little “inside the ball” for anyone hoping to find more stories.

Stein says that, overall, she estimates she spent about $ 25 to $ 30 million (about $ 126 million to $ 151 million in today’s dollars) on some 350 photography, sculpture, printing, and photography in her two years in Tehran.

“The construction of an important collection was daunting and dependent on the changes of the arts market,” she writes. “With even unlimited money available, it would be almost impossible to get great paintings by some artists just because of their rarity.”

Later, she continues, she learned that money for the purchase was cut from Iranian government oil revenues.

What she bought

During his tenure, Stein writes, Tehran acquired his most famous artwork: the Jackson Pollock laboratory Walls on Indian red earth (1950), for which Stein suggests that the Iranians paid about $ 850,000.

“Apart from two other important paintings which may or may not sell and cost two million dollars or more, this painting is probably the best available,” wrote the person- the sale of Castelli, when the merits of Pollock’s work were consulted upon. (Recently, when the photo went on tour ten years ago, he had insurance worth $ 250 million.)

They also found a remarkable sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, Walking Man I., (1956-1960), produced at the height of his career; two large statues by Henry Moore; multi-illustrations by Mark Rothko; and an excellent oil painting by Willem de Kooning, Light in August from about 1946.

Works by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, Roy Lichtenstein, Mary Cassatt, and dozens more made their way to Tehran, marked for the permanent collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.

In addition, Stein says she bought about 10,000 art books. “I argued for what I wanted,” she says, “and I would usually say I got what I wanted. ”

Stein is more concerned about what was added to the collection after her departure in 1977; it is difficult to differentiate what they found from the contemporary art that the Islamic government captured from private individuals who were deported after the end of the 1979 uprising. there are several West [artworks] they are from the people who have gone, ”she says.