Elaine Dannheisser (Brooklyn 1923 - 2001 Manhattan) was an avid contemporary art collector and driving force behind the Werner and Elaine Dannheisser Art Collection. She was a onetime trustee of the

Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: * The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Ne ...

. Following an exhibition of her collection in 1997-98, she donated the largest ever cache of contemporary art to the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

Early activity

Early in her life, Elaine Dannheisser studied art at

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...

. Werner Dannheisser (1909–1992) and Elaine married and initially collected

French painting French art consists of the visual arts, visual and plastic arts (including French architecture, woodwork, textiles, and ceramics) originating from the geographical area of France. Modern France was the main centre for the European art of the U ...

such as

Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

Jean Dubuffet Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (; 31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French Painting, painter and sculpture, sculptor of the School of Paris, École de Paris (School of Paris). His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" a ...

Maurice Utrillo Maurice Utrillo (; born Maurice Valadon; 26 December 1883 – 5 November 1955) was a French painter of the School of Paris who specialized in cityscapes. From the Montmartre quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painters of ...

and

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

. In the 1980s the Dannheissers sold their French painting collection and began to purchase

contemporary art Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

from Soho and East Village galleries. Elaine became a passionate bridge player, frequently spending six hours a day at the Beverly Bridge Club, at

Lexington Avenue Lexington Avenue, often colloquially abbreviated as "Lex", is an avenue on the East Side (Manhattan), East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue carries southbound one-way traffic from East 131st Street (Manhattan), 131st Street to Gra ...

and 57th Street.

Dannheisser Foundation

In 1982, the couple established the Dannheisser Foundation, which donated art works to museums and maintained a 9,000-square-foot space on Duane Street in lower Manhattan for art display and on-site

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

. There they held an extensive collection of contemporary art, including work by

Bruce Nauman Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941) is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico. Life and work ...

Brice Marden Nicholas Brice Marden Jr. (October 15, 1938 – August 9, 2023) was an American artist generally described as minimalist, although his work has roots in abstract expressionism, color field painting. and lyrical abstraction. He lived and worked i ...

and

Robert Gober Robert Gober (born September 12, 1954) is an American sculptor. His work is often related to domestic and familiar objects such as sinks, doors, and legs. Early life and education Gober was born in Wallingford, Connecticut.Carl Andre Carl Andre (September 16, 1935 – January 24, 2024) was an American minimalist artist recognized for his ordered linear and grid format sculptures. His sculptures range from large public artworks (such as ''Stone Field Sculpture'', 1977, in ...

and

Richard Serra Richard Serra (November 2, 1938 – March 26, 2024) was an American artist known for his large-scale Abstract art, abstract sculptures made for Site-specific art, site-specific landscape, urban, and Architecture, architectural settings, a ...

, the austere paintings of Robert Ryman, and the conceptual art projects of Felix Gonzalez-Torres to the staged photographs of

Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...

. Other artists in the collection at one time or another included Mark Innerst,

Jeff Koons Jeffrey Lynn Koons (; born January 21, 1955) is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror- finish s ...

Matthew Barney Matthew Barney (born March 25, 1967) is an American contemporary artist and film director who works in the fields of sculpture, film, photography and drawing. His works explore connections among geography, biology, geology and mythology as well ...

Joseph Nechvatal Joseph Nechvatal (born January 15, 1951) is an American post-conceptual digital artist and art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom computer viruses. Life and work Joseph Nechva ...

Bernd and Hilla Becher Bernhard "Bernd" Becher (; 20 August 1931 – 22 June 2007), and Hilla Becher, née Wobeser (2 September 1934 – 10 October 2015), were German conceptual artists and photographers working as a collaborative duo. They are best known for their e ...

Andreas Gursky Andreas Gursky (born 15 January 1955) is a German photographer and professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany. He is known for his Large format (photography), large format architecture and Landscape photography, landscape colour photog ...

Thomas Struth Thomas Struth (born 11 October 1954) is a German photographer who is best known for his ''Museum Photographs'' series, black and white photographs of the streets of Düsseldorf and New York taken in the 1970s, and his family photographs series. ...

Gilbert & George Gilbert Prousch, sometimes referred to as Gilbert Proesch (born 17 September 1943), and George Passmore (born 8 January 1942) are artists who work together as the collaborative art duo Gilbert & George. They are known for their formal appearance ...

Dan Graham Daniel Graham (March 31, 1942 – February 19, 2022) was an American visual artist, writer, and curator in the writer-artist tradition. In addition to his visual works, he published a large array of critical and speculative writing that spanned ...

, Tom Otterness,

Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( ; ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and Aesthetics, art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism and sociology. With Heinrich Böll, , Caroline Tisdall, Rober ...

Tony Cragg Sir Anthony Douglas Cragg (born Liverpool 9 April 1949) is an Anglo-German sculptor, resident in Wuppertal, Germany since 1977. Early life and training Tony Cragg was born in Liverpool."Tony Cragg." ''Contemporary Artists''. Farmington Hills, ...

Katharina Fritsch Katharina Fritsch (born 14 February 1956) is a German sculptor."Katharina Fritsch: Arti ...

Anselm Kiefer Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan h ...

, and

Sigmar Polke Sigmar Polke (13 February 1941 – 10 June 2010) was a German painter and photographer. Polke experimented with a wide range of styles, subject matters and materials. In the 1970s, he concentrated on photography, returning to paint in the 1980s, ...

. Much of this adventurous collection of contemporary artworks has been donated to The

,
On The Edge: Contemporary Art from the Werner and Elaine Dannheisser Collection: September 30, 1997–January 20, 1998 although MOMA turned down Dannheisser's 1996 offer to donate

Christopher Wool Christopher Wool (born 1955) is an American artist. Since the 1980s, Wool's art has incorporated issues surrounding post-conceptual ideas. Early life and career Wool was born in Chicago, Illinois to Glorye and Ira Wool, a molecular biologist and ...

's celebrated 1988 word painting ''Apocalypse Now'', which would sell in 2013 for $26,485,000 at

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...

auction house. The Dannheisser Foundation at Duane Street closed in 2001 on the death of Elaine Dannheisser.

Footnotes

References

* Robert Storr, Werner Dannheisser,

Kirk Varnedoe John Kirk Train Varnedoe (January 18, 1946 – August 14, 2003) was an American art historian, the chief curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) from 1988 to 2001, Professor of the History of Art at the Institute for ...

, Elaine Dannheisser, ''On the edge: contemporary art from the Werner and Elaine Dannheisser collection'', New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1998 {{DEFAULTSORT:Dannheisser, Elaine 1923 births 2001 deaths American art collectors Women art collectors