‘Transformational’ art collection donated to The Hyde

80

SHARES

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us

Save

Share

Not long after graduating from the University of Cincinnati, Werner Feibes purchased a painting from the Tang Dynasty for $600. His friends thought he was crazy.

“They asked me if I realized that with $600 I could buy a brand-new Volkswagen Bug,” remembered Feibes, a 1948 Mont Pleasant High School grad and longtime Schenectady resident. “It was 1955. They thought with that kind of money I should buy a car. My answer to them was, ‘Yeah, I could, but this won’t rust.’ ”

The painting and 54 other pieces of art collected by Feibes and his life partner, Jim Schmitt, were officially gifted to The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls last week. Schmitt died two years ago at the age of 87. Feibes, 85, is sharing with others the artwork he and his partner collected for more than half a century.

“We had always talked about it, and we had never collected as an investment for money,” said Feibes, who along with Schmitt ran an architectural firm in Schenectady. “We bought art because we enjoyed it.”

The collection is around 60 percent paintings and 40 percent sculptures, according to Feibes, and includes work by Josef Albers, Sol LeWitt, Grace Hartigan, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Motherwell, Bridget Riley, Robert Rauschenberg, David Smith and 38 others.

“This is a transformational gift for The Hyde,” said Erin Coe, director of The Hyde Collection, in a news release. “The museum is largely known as a collection of old masters. The donation from Werner Feibes and James Schmitt now makes us the leading repository of modern art in the region.”

Feibes referred to the collection as “non-objective, non-figurative modern art.”

“This kind of art is about ideas, totally, and doesn’t involve itself with figurative realism,” explained Feibes. “We were always fascinated by this kind of art. Realism never appealed to us.”

The Hyde isn’t the only art museum benefitting from the generosity of Schmitt and Feibes. At the end of 2014, Feibes officially gave a wooden sculpture by LeWitt to the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica. The piece, produced by LeWitt in 1976, was titled, “Wall Piece #2, Cube Structure Based on Nine Moduals.” LeWitt was an American sculptor who lived from 1928-2004.

“It’s a very important piece for us because it’s a sculpture from the 1970s and it adds some great strength in that area for us,” said Anna Tobin D’Ambrosio, director and chief curator at Munson-Williams-Proctor. “It’s made out of wood and it is a series of cubes that project out from the wall.”

The work had been on loan to the Utica museum since 2011 and was officially gifted to the facility last December.

“They were wonderful friends of Munson-Williams, and it continues to be a great pleasure to work with Werner,” said D’Ambrosio. “He is such a warm, intelligent person with such a deep appreciation of art and of its importance to the community.”

Feibes, who along with Schmitt helped make the Stockade Neighborhood in Schenectady the state’s first historic district in 1959, had divided his artwork among his home in the Stockade and apartments in New York City and Block Island in Rhode Island.

“I gave up our place in the Bronx, and we did have some stored in our office building at 217 Union St., but I told them to come down and pick it up and get it out of there,” said Feibes. “It’s been gone for about two weeks now and we just finished all the paperwork. I’m 85. I loved it. I suppose I’m going to miss it, but it was time.”

Two works from the recent gift are currently on display at The Hyde in the Charles R. Wood Gallery through Sept. 27.

80

SHARES

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us

Save

Share

Categories: Entertainment, News