Swiss art collector Ernest Beyeler, renowned for amassing one of the most impressive international collections of 20th-century art, died on Thursday. He was 88.
The Beyeler Foundation, the museum he created 13 years ago for his collection of masterpieces, said in a statement that Beyeler died in his sleep at his home in Riehen on the outskirts of Basel, Switzerland.
"We mourn him deeply," the statement said. "At the same time, we are grateful for having been able to know and co-operate for so many years with this extraordinary personality."
Beyeler was also the co-founder of Art Basel, the city's annual international art fair.
The son of a Swiss railway employee, Beyeler trained as an economist but nurtured his passion for art after the Second World War working in an antique bookshop in Basel.
After the death of the owner, Beyeler took over the business and gradually turned it into a gallery with his wife, Hildy. He often said he was guided by little more than his own intuition, but his eye for undervalued Picassos and impressionist paintings enable him to become Switzerland's most famous art collector.
After his first exhibition of Japanese woodcuts in 1947, some 16,000 works of art, including pieces by some of the biggest names in modern art, passed through Beyeler's hands over the next 50 years.
His breakthrough came in the early 1960s with the acquisition of about 340 works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Paul Klee, Claude Monet, Henri Matisse and others from the Thompson collection in the U.S.
According to the foundation, Beyeler's friend, Picasso, allowed him to pick 26 of his works during a visit to the artist's studio in southern France in 1966.
The Beyelers established a foundation in 1982 for their art collection, but the works were only shown in their entirety seven years later in Madrid.
The Beyeler Foundation opened its doors in Riehen in 1997. A masterpiece of contemporary architecture, the museum was designed by Renzo Piano. Its permanent collection counts about 200 paintings and sculptures by 40 artists, including Picasso and Andy Warhol.
"We have always been deeply moved by great works of art, and their impact on us is such that we are often loathe to part with them," Beyeler said at the museum's opening.
"And we have a need to share these works with others and pass on the profit they bring."
Although increasingly frail in recent years, Beyeler continued to visit the museum and attend its special exhibitions. He was seen last year by an Associated Press reporter talking to the museum's business partners in its cafeteria.
Beyeler's wife died in 2008, and the couple had no children. In recent years, Beyler set up a foundation to direct part of the museum's profit into protecting tropical rain forests.
The Beyeler Foundation's collections are estimated by Swiss magazine Bilanz to be worth $1.85 billion US.
- Indian Writer.
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