On the death of the great gallery owner Helga de Alvear

As a co -founder and persistent support of the Madrid Art Fair Arco, she has always been internationally present on Art Basel and Art Cologne. She initiated the Berlin Art Forum.

At the trade fairs she played, Helga de Alvear often looked around in her insatiable curiosity before opening the fair, acquired art from colleagues and colleagues on a large scale, then rarely hidden their joy over the discoveries. She always said radiantly: “I buy more art at trade fairs than I sell there!”

Her collection, which was initially determined by Spanish avant -garde, had always systematically expanded Helga de Alvear – with the vision of founding a foundation – systematically with international positions since the late 1980s, with a clear focus on photography and video art. These include artists such as Thomas Demand, Elmgreen & Dragset, Candida Höfer, Isaac Julien or Philip-Lorca Dicorcia.

A museum for the collection

In addition to her collective passion, the business -friendly, responsible art mediator acquired works that she first thought in her gallery in Madrid to “live” with you in advance, as she put it. She was always significant for her cultural concern, in her Spanish adopted home, where many art lovers still believed until the middle of the nineties, only representative painting – and also Spanish – was “a good example”.

In 2014 Helga de Alvear became for her Commitment to German art abroad, awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for their cultural mission in Spain.

Above all, the warm, almost down -to -earth nature impressed with which the gallery owner moved in the often hypothermic art world. So she was able to rave passionately – in German with unmistakably Hessian well. “Working with the works” was her credo for the future of her collection of around 3000 work.

From 2007 she fulfilled her wish with a “Art Kunsthalle” including the auditorium, studio rooms “and lots of space for workshops and symposia” in the old town of Cáceres in Spanish autonomy extremadura. In fact, it is a museum, and if you visit the Museo Contemporáneo Helga de Alvear, you are impressed by the quality of art and its presentation, which not least includes Goya etchings: installed at eye level of children, almost within reach.

Recently, Helga de Alvear said again: “My greatest wish is that as many people as possible enjoy art from my collection.”