joseph scissorhands

Lucian Freud - Portrait of a Man (Baron H.H. Thyssen-Bornemisza), 1981-1982

"The collector attempts always to acquire the best, and his knowledge of what is best is always widening. His is the task of judging between degrees of perfection."
Arthur Davison Ficke.

The first museum stop on my visit to Madrid earlier this year was to the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum. There was a special retrospective dedicated to the painter Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) here, which turned out to be an amazing exhibit on the Danish artists quiet, tonal paintings of interiors. I then went on to explore the rest of the Thyssen-Bornemisza's vast collection situated in the huge, elegant neo-classical Villahermosa Palace to refresh my memory of what one man's singular collecting vision contained. It is an immensely comprehensive collection of art, almost overwhelming in its entirety, and made me question the nature and purpose of collecting when one has seemingly unlimited disposable income. Visiting exhibitions of notable art collections amassed by individual collectors has become a bit of a thing for me on my European travels, which can be seen previously here, here, here, here, here. Most have been particularly impressive in their scope, but none quite clearly has had the breadth, quality scale, ambition or funds of this collection, which aimed to, and does in fact, encompass the whole history of western art, by Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza (1921 – 2002), or Hans Heinrich August Gábor Tasso Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza to give him his full name. He became heir to a fortune from a steel empire much like female collector Helene Kröller-Müller (here). On the death of his father in 1947, Thyssen-Bornemisza inherited TBG (Thyssen-Bornemisza Group) Holdings N.V. a business empire that included banking, naval construction and large parts of Rotterdam harbour, as well as a major art collection with hundreds of paintings of European masters from between the 14th and the 19th centuries. He added to the art collection with more old masters, before starting to collect pieces of modern art by the likes of Picasso, Mondrian, Pollock, Bacon and Freud, becoming an expert on paintings in the process. The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum was founded in Madrid after the Baron was refused permission to enlarge his museum in Lugano where he lived. A competition to house the collection elsewhere in Europe was held and the suitably large, aristocratic former Palace Villahermosa a short distance away from the famed Prado and Reina Sofia, was found in Madrid forming the "Golden Triangle of Art" within the city, thanks in part to the influence of his Spanish fifth wife. The Thyssen-Bornemisza collection consisting of over 1,600 paintings was once the second largest private collection in the world after that of the British Royal Collection and is valued at €2B. The collection is truly an embarrassment of art riches and you can certainly see why so many institutions fought for the rights to house it. The institution was created to make the family’s extraordinary collection accessible to the public, and to fill gaps in Western art left by other national collections. This collection has been carefully curated over decades, to encompass a wide span of art history from the 13th to the late 20th century. Among the Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces are works by artists such as Titian, Caravaggio, and Rubens—each piece illustrating pivotal developments in technique and artistic narrative. Northern European paintings from the 15th and 16th centuries, featuring artists like Jan van Eyck and Hans Holbein, which offer insights into the craftsmanship and symbolic complexity of this school. Moving into the 19th century, the collection boasts impressive works by the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. The 20th-century galleries stand out for featuring significant works by American artists such as Edward Hopper and Mark Rothko, bridging the Atlantic and enriching the museum’s and indeed Madrid's thematic scope by exploring modernist and Abstract Expressionism, expanding the remit beyond the traditional Spanish masters. Thankfully on the day of my visit the crowds were surprisingly sparse allowing ample room to examine the paintings up close by the likes of Dalí, El Greco, Monet, Picasso, Rembrandt along with works of Pop Art and Photorealism and every other major important "ism" and art movement in the Villahermosa's capacious rooms. Visitors begin exploring the museum on the ground floor with rooms full of art collected by Carmen "Tita" Cervera, the Baron's fifth wife. You then move upstairs to encounter works by the leading lights in contemporary and modern 20th-Century art with many American artists' work represented. Working backwards along the art timeline. from here to 20th-century European art, and the further up in the building you go you encounter more paintings from further back in time. Walking through the galleries of the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection the art seemed never-ending, and it did towards the end feel like a test of endurance rather than a leisurely stroll, so vast was the amount of art to be seen. Below are just a fraction of the artworks in the exhaustive collection that I particularly liked.

"Art collectors are pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. What matters and survives is the art." - Charles Saatchi.