ARCO FOUNDATION: 2019 "A" AWARDS FOR COLLECTING
In its 23rd edition, the Arco Foundation "A" Awards for Collecting announced the winners. From individual private collectors to museums, the winners were six: Cleusa Garfinkel; CAAC MALI, Museum of Art of Lima; The Meadows Foundation; Bank of Spain Collection; H.E.F. Collection, Juan Entrecanales Azcárate, and Kells Collection (Juan Manuel Elizalde and Choli Fuentes).
According to members of the foundation, the awards were presented under the recognition of the "artistic value of collectors and institutions funds, as well as their work in supporting the dissemination of contemporary art." The awards will be formally delivered in the Community of Madrid on February 26 with a dinner to raise funds for the ARCO Foundation Collection, ARCO Madrid.
About the winners
Located at the top of the Brazilian collector sector, Cleusa Garfinkel has been collecting works since 1974. Her collection ranges from modernist artists such as Alfredo Volpi, Antonio Bandeira and Yolanda Mohalyi, to popular artists as Miriam Inés. Since the 80s, Garfinkel has become interested in the Brazilian and international contemporary scene adding names such as Beatriz Milhazes, Carlos Garaicoa, Cecily Brown, Edgar de Souza and Miquel Barceló to her collection. A feature to highlight in the acquisitions of Garfinkel is the interest placed on women artists: Adriana Varejão, Anna Maria Maiolino, lygia Clark, Louise Bougeois, Tracy Emmy and Zília Sanchéz are some of them.
A little more to the northwest, but still in Latin America, the award-winning Contemporary Art Acquisitions Committee of the Lima Art Museum (CAAC MALI) is an entity created in 2006 with the aim of enriching the contemporary art treasure of MALI. Its peculiarity is that the funds used must be a representation of contemporary Peruvian artistic production. Since 2018, Alexandra Bryce Cisneros leads the committee.
On the other hemisphere, The Meadows Museum (Texas, United States) is a US institution focused on the study, research and exhibition of Spanish art. Outside of Spain, The Meadows Museum - founded in 1965 by an exuberant donation from entrepreneur Algur H. Meadows - means one of the most complete collections of the European country art. With pieces from the 10th to the 21st century, the museum poses artworks from all periods: medieval objects, Renaissance and Baroque sculptures, paintings from the Golden Age and modern masters and a huge collection of contemporary art. Dalí, El Greco, Fortuny, Goya, Miró, Murillo, Picasso, Ribera, Sorolla and Velázquez are just some of the names that walk through this huge collection.
Located in Spain, the Bank of Spain Collection is the result of an artistic heritage accumulated over more than two hundred years. Founded in 1782, the collection helped several artists of the time, including Francisco de Goya. To this day, thanks to the collection and patronage work that the Bank has continuously maintained, the collection gathered more than four thousand pieces from all disciplines. An interesting fact about the collection is that, since the incorporation of the Bank of Spain to the Eurosystem, an internationalization of the collection was initiated, leading to the acquisition of artists such as Candida Höfer, Miriam Cahn and Wolfgang Tillmans.
Another of the winners has been the H.E.F Collection of Juan Entrecanales. With more than five hundred works (from the 19th to the 21st century) the collection originated with the inheritance that Entrecanales father left him: mainly Spanish painting of the period 1880-1920. Since then, Enrecanales Jr. has been incorporating artists such as Picasso, Chagall, Juan Gris, Bores, Pancho Cossío and Julio González.
Finally, the Kells Collection, a consequence of the approach of Juan Manuel Elizalde and Choli Fuentes to the art world, is a collection that has been growing since 1996. With a first interest on the 20th century scene, some of the first artists to be part of the collection were Luis Feito, Antoni Clavé, Eusebio Sempere and Baltasar Lobo. However, since 2004 Elizalde and Fuentes have established a great commitment to contemporary art and new languages.
