With the news of Walmart heiress Alice Walton preparing to open her massive Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas in November and California’s billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad set to build The Broad, a stunning Diller Scofidio + Renfro-designed museum that will open in Los Angeles in 2013, we thought it was time to take a look a how wealthy art collectors are promoting their prizes. From the edgy Rubell Family Collection, housed in a former Drug Enforcement Agency storage site in Miami and Francois Pinault’s coveted contemporary art on view in historic buildings in Venice to a Sheikh’s rich collection of Arab art exhibited in a converted school in Qatar and Korean national treasures shown at Samsung’s masterfully designed Leeum in Seoul, here’s a glimpse at some of our favorite private museums around the world. If there are others that you think we should know about, please share.
Rubell Family Collection, Miami

Don and Mera Rubell started collecting contemporary art in the mid-60s, but they really put the Rubell Family Collection on the map when they re-purposed a massive Drug Enforcement Agency warehouse in Miami in 1993 and started showing the collection, which includes works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman, Keith Haring (shown here), Takashi Murakami, and hundreds more cutting-edge artists, to the public.




Comments (40)
I believe this list is missing the recently inaugurated Soumaya museum in Mexico City, with the art collection of the world’s richest man (by the widest margin ever according to Forbes), Carlos Slim Helu.Here are a couple of links in english about its opening in March.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/mar/02/soumaya-museum-mexico-city
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/soumaya-museum-move-over-mr-getty-2254556.html
i would have like to seen De la Cruz collection listed here. Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz) have built a very elegant and contemporary building, close to Miami’s Design District. They own a vast collection of contemporary art, along with a project room which supports local artists work. there is no admission fee to enter their museum.
Great post! Keep them coming! Please
I would have absolutely included Naoshima Island in Japan. It is incredible.
I wonder if DESTES have been paying their taxes in Athens, or did they amass their collection by stealing from their fellow Athenians
the menil collection is certainly more impressive than any that are listed here.
I think this is a great posting, and Paul Laster is a terrific “curator” on this topic. Just wish I had the summer to visit all of them..
i agree with adal. the De La Cruz collection should be listed here…
The Kimbell in Fort Worth, TX…
This is how the Getty museum came to be!
Weisman Art Foundation in Malibu,.
The Menil Collection in Houston, an other Renzo Piano masterpiece.
What about the Saatchi gallery. Seems like an obvious one to overlook.
The Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City, one of the largest and best collections in the world in decorative arts and now pushing a lot industrial design, this years is its 25th anniversary. It should be included. http://www.franzmayer.org.mx
You forgot this one >> http://www.inhotim.org.br/
The Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania is also well-worth including. The museum was founded by Tasmanian millionaire David Walsh, who made his fortune from gambling, and has invested $100m AUD in his collection and another $76m AUD in the museum itself.
The museum just opened in January (2011) to house his private collection that ranges from antiquities to Belgian conceptual artist Wim Delvoye’s excrement-producing installation, Cloaca.
More at http://www.mona.net.au or http://bit.ly/o6yxfb
The Zabludowicz is an excellent venue, but how about MONA, Maeght, Hombroich, Louisiana. This list should be the top 50.
No mention of the amazing new private museum opened by David Walsh in Tasmania, Australia recently. MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) is a new model for museums and incorporates great Iphone apps instead of labels. It has a terrific mix of contemporary and historical art focussed around the themes of sex and death
MONA would be on my list. Very, very clever use of technology. Plus brilliant building, brilliant artwork and very clever curation. Smashing stuff.
MONA in Hobart Tas. is extraordinary – architecturally and conceptually. Collection’s not bad either. An absolute must see.
Hey, Walmart has done American art proud…a museum built with Communist Chinese slave labor profits. Perhaps we can view photo essays of empty American factories, Chinese-made consumer goods garbage art and the world famous Trail of Manufacturers’ Tears, a mile long display of 2nd hand Chinese-made $9 shoes.. meandering through the forest, looking for a job.. What a con-job… Museum of American Art.. Chinese reproductions most likely..
hirschhorn? I guess it doesn’t count because he gave it to the Smithsonian, but still, its his museum in the majority.
Museum of Old and New Art. Hobart. Tasmania.
Tapies’ work, and some quite fine sculpture:
http://www.fundaciotapies.org/site/spip.php?rubrique65
great article btw, and glad to see so many people sharing other places i hadn’t heard about before :)
Also missing, the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis designed by Tadao Ando as well.
http://www.pulitzerarts.org/
How are you defining private museum? In New York City alone you left out MoMA, The Whitney, and the Guggenheim. Plus the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art are privately held but displayed in a city-owned building.
What about the Menil collection?
I’m glad to see the (Dominique De’) Menil Collection mentioned twice in the comments above, and others mentioned caused me to consider that you should have presented two lists – one American and one international. At least most people stand a chance of visiting some of the American collections, given that not all people are jet-setters!(Though I’ve been fortunate enough to travel abroad a wee bit in my life!).
I forgot to mention that the Menil (in Houston) is a block away from the Rothko Chapel, which makes a visit there doubly enjoyable and enriching.
The Kröller Müller Museum in the Netherlands with gallery and sculpture park that you can cycle around is amazing. Also the 21st Century Museum in Kanazawa Japan with architecture by SANAA. And Mona in Tasmania of course.
very interested in davey’s comment/question about how you’re defining public and private.
though this list obviously focuses on more contemporary art, I would add the Barnes Museum to a broader list.
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Proposing a worldwide association or forum of private museums and collections … before anything else happens! Union is strength.
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Collecciones Michaelangelo Antiques was set up in the early 1980′s and its main purpose is in the distribution of rare antique pieces. Its main office and showroom is located at the 680 Building near Channel 2 & 7 in EDSA. In October 1992, Collecciones Michaelangelo Antiques opened a showroom in EDSA Shangri-la in Ortigas Center, where business proved to be an even more lucrative venture. As present, CMA boasts of having the largest collection of Philippine furniture and other rare antique pieces. It also actively participates in international trade fairs in Osaka and Tokyo, Japan, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and other international locations. The Corporation boasts of having the widest and biggest inventory of the oldest ethnic jewelries, garments, bulols and Chinese annamest and southeast asian antique ceramic pieces numbering more than 10,000 pieces.
Related Companies:
680 Home Appliance, Inc.
680 Home Appliance, Inc was incorporated
On August28,1968. Its primary purpose
Then was the sale of Home Appliances.
DURASTAR CORPORATION
Durastar was incorporated in 1994.
It is primarily engaged in the importation,
Assembly and distribution of home appliances.
Visit and contact us at:
839 EDSA, South Triangle, Diliman 1103 Quezon City
( Near MRT- Quezon Avenue Station beside Seaoil Gasoline )
Contact nos: (632) (02) 410-6802, (632) 211-3530
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