Vancouver Art Gallery Will Receive 122 Artworks

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Robert Rauschenberg, “Sea-Cow Treaty (Spread),” 1977, cloth, silk, paper, transfer images, metal plates, metal taps, metal buckets (joined by single handle), electrical wiring mounted on wood

(collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, promised gift of Brigitte and Henning Freybe, copyright Robert Rauschenberg Foundation/CARCC Ottawa, photo courtesy of Vancouver Art Gallery)

The Vancouver Art Gallery has announced it will receive a gift of 122 artworks from Brigitte and Henning Freybe. 

The Vancouver couple, who began collecting art in the 1970s, have built a large and diverse collection that includes painting, photography, film, sculpture and installation.

Artists include Carl Andre, Nairy Baghramian, Christian Boltanski, Daniel Buren, Tacita Dean, Frank Stella, Alicja Kwade, Wolfgang Tillmans, Robert Rauschenberg, Julie Mehretu and William Kentridge. BC artists include Beau Dick, Stan Douglas, Geoffrey Farmer, Rodney Graham, Brian Jungen, Kathy Slade and Jeff Wall. 

“We are honoured to accept this transformative gift from the Freybes, one that was cultivated with support from Daina Augaitis, Chief Curator Emerita at the Vancouver Art Gallery, alongside other museum curators and directors over many years,” said Anthony Kiendl, the gallery’s CEO and Executive Director, in a news release. 

“The Freybe collection is diverse and wide-ranging — materially, geographically and conceptually — and at its core, it honours the creativity and knowledge that artists produce. This acquisition will reshape the gallery’s holdings of local and international art and add significant works by major figures from the contemporary art world.” 

To honour the gift, the gallery will organize Postcards from the Heart: Selections from the Brigitte and Henning Freybe Collection. It will be on view April 18 to Oct. 5 and will feature more than 30 of the most significant works from the 1960s to today. 

“Postcards from the Heart represents the joy we have felt in meeting artists and experiencing and collecting art over the years. This is an extraordinarily special moment for us to not only see our collection together, but to share these significant and visionary artistic voices with Vancouver audiences and beyond,” said Brigitte and Henning Freybe in the release. 

“We are deeply invested in the Vancouver Art Gallery and its offering to the city. Gifting our collection to the gallery and investing in its future is our way of giving back to this important community. It is a gesture of love to the art world.” 

Source: Vancouver Art Gallery

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