Museums to share private collection

Richard S. Zeisler, a little-known New York art collector who died in March, left more than 110 artworks valued at about $100 million to 16 institutions, the New York Times reported.

A private investor who favored 20th century masters, Zeisler left the bulk of his collection to major East Coast and Midwest museums. The Museum of Modern Art in New York, where Zeisler was a longtime trustee, received the largest donation, more than 30 paintings and works on paper by artists such as Rene Magritte, Vasily Kandinsky, Joan Miro and Pablo Picasso. The Metropolitan Museum of Art got Francis Bacon’s 1947-48 painting “Head I” and Miro’s 1934 pastel “Woman”; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum enhanced its Modernist holdings with works by Max Beckmann, Yves Tanguy, Bridget Riley and Miro.

Among 10 Zeisler gifts to the Art Institute of Chicago are Italian Futurist Gino Severini’s 1913 masterpiece, “Festival in Montmartre (Carousel).” and still lifes by Swiss painter Paul Klee and French architect Le Corbusier. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., received two paintings, Fernand Leger’s 1922 “Deux Femmes” and a 1926 canvas by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.

There was no word about any gifts to California institutions.

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-- Suzanne Muchnic