Building the Collection 2012 HOWARD RACHOFSKY in conversation with ALLAN SCHWARTZMAN Tuesday, April 9, 2013 Building the Collection MARIELUISE HESSEL in conversation with TOM ECCLES 6:308pm Hosted by Sothebys, New York Marieluise Hessel bought her first painting, a 1966 nude by Gerhard Richter, for less than $1,000. Through the years she continued collecting a broad range of works, and in 2006 Hessel gifted her 1,700-piece collection to Bard College, inaugurating its new art museum. The 17,000-square-foot space, appropriately named the Hessel Museum of Art, is part of the Center for Curatorial Studies on Bards campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The Marieluise Hessel Collection of Contemporary Art is international in scope, with paintings, photographs, works on paper, sculptures, videos and video installations from the 1960s to the present. It stands out for the inclusion of many remarkable works from the foremost movements in contemporary art: Minimalism, Arte Povera, Transavantgarde, Neoexpressionism, Patter and Decoration, The Hairy Who and Chicago Imagists, Post-minimalists, and New Media, among others. Tom Eccles is Executive Director of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. Since joining CCS Bard in 2005, he has organized exhibitions with artists Martin Creed, Keith Edmier, Rachel Harrison, Josiah McElheny and Liam Gillick. 
