Heidi Horten Collection

In a city with an abundance of world-class art museums, the new Heidi Horton Collection has made an enormous splash even amid controversy. Opened in June 2022 in a beautifully renovated palace, the private collection has been declared one of the best in Europe and contains hundreds of 20th-century masterpieces, all amassed over decades of discerning and discreet buying on behalf of Austrian billionaire Heidi Goëss-Horten. The museum, which opened the same year that its patron died, contains works by Klimt, Schiele, Chagall, Picasso, Baselitz, Richter, Warhol, Basquiat and other modern and contemporary masters. (It is said that Heidi herself had great taste but was also helped in her collecting by a very astute advisor.) After Horten’s death, part of her famous jewelry collection was sold by Christie’s auction house, and the $201 million raised will support the foundation supporting the museum and other philanthropic causes. However, after an outcry by Jewish advocacy groups who pointed out that much of the wealth amassed by Horten’s late husband Helmut could be attributed to businesses bought from Jewish families under duress before and during World War II, Christie’s pledged to donate much of the proceeds to Holocaust education and canceled the last of the jewelry sales. The museum management has also committed to “recognize the moral necessity of aggressively engaging with this aspect of history and express our deep regret that this has not been done sooner.”