Collectors make colossal donation to Vancouver Art Gallery, valued at over $10M

Rauchenberg's 'Sea Cow', one of 122 pieces gifted to the Vancouver Art Gallery by collectors Brigitte and Henning Freybe. (Courtesy: VAG)

An expansive body of works owned by two prominent, local collectors is set to be gifted to the Vancouver Art Gallery, marking the largest donation of contemporary art in the gallery’s history.

Valued at over $10 million, the vast collection of Vancouver’s Brigitte and Henning Freybe comprises 122 pieces from an array of notable local and international artists. It includes sculptures, paintings, photographs, film and prints from the likes of Beau Dick, Tacita Dean, Carl Andre, Frank Stella, Robert Rauschenberg and Julie Mehretu.

The colossal gift is “transformational” for the art gallery, said Eva Respini, its deputy director and director of curatorial programs. Not merely because of its size but because of the “truly museum quality” of the pieces offered.

“There are works by post-war American and European artists that we don’t often see in private collections anymore, people like Robert Rushen Frank Stella, and also contemporary artists who are still working at the top of their game, like William Kentridge and Julie Mehretu,” she said.

“These works are ambitious in scale and representative of that artist’s practice, really pushing the boundaries and making leaps and bounds in terms of how we think about art in our world today.”

While choosing highlights would be like “choosing your favourite children,” Respini is quick to laud a sculptural piece by American artist Rauschenberg as one of the collection’s most notable.

The interactive artwork is a water feature with two side-by-side taps that spout water into conjoined buckets – red water from one, blue from the other.

“The thing that I think is pretty impressive when I think about favorite works from their collection is their ability to live with works that are really difficult, or difficult to maintain,” says Respini.

“It’s not the easiest to have a piece with running water.”

One piece, titled ‘Milk Stone’ is a marble sculpture that isn’t complete until a splash of milk is poured into a small, protruding lip. Milk, of course, curdles and thus the sculpture needs to be “changed” every day, says Respini.

Another piece, crafted at the hands of French sculptor and photographer Christian Boltanski, is a large sculpture influenced by the trauma of World War II and the Holocaust. It’s one thing for a museum to hold such a piece, but another thing entirely for collectors like the Freybe’s to “live with it in their house every day,” she says.

The high-maintenance sculptures intertwined with the paintings and photographs in the collection demonstrate how invested both collectors, originally from Germany, have been in the art sphere - not merely funneling their funds into pieces but their time and effort, too, says Respini.

The collecting duo have been “really active” in Vancouver’s art scene since the 60s, she adds, when Brigitte Freybe was a volunteer at the Vancouver Art Gallery herself. In the decades since, the couple have volunteered at the gallery in various roles, gifting pieces here in there, before they went on to start their own project, the respected Griffin Arts Projects in North Vancouver, a decade ago.

A showcase of the sprawling collection will be shown at the gallery via upcoming exhibition Postcards from the Heart: Selections from the Brigitte and Henning Freybe Collection, where over 30 items cherry-picked by Respini will be displayed alongside dozens of letters and thank-you notes offered to the couple from artists who have been hosted at their home.

In a joint statement released by the gallery, the Freybe’s said the exhibition, set to open April 18, represents the “joy” the two 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,” they said.

Adding that they were “deeply invested” in the Vancouver Art Gallery, they said gifting their collection to the gallery and investing in its future is their way of giving back to Vancouver’s “important” art community.

“It is a gesture of love to the art world.”