A Zoom with Agnes Gund: On Living with Art

Conversation · March 2025. Recorded remotely between Nina Pinault in Gstaad and Agnes Gund in New York.

Nina Pinault: Agnes, we've known each other for what — forty years? I first met you at MoMA in the mid-eighties. You were already president of the International Council. I was just starting to collect seriously. You were generous with your time then. You didn't have to be.

Agnes Gund: I remember. You were quiet. You listened. That's rare in this world. Most people want to tell you what they've bought. You wanted to know why I bought what I bought. That told me everything I needed to know about you. You weren't collecting for status. You were collecting for company. We've shared that, I think, across the years.

Nina Pinault: You've lived with art longer than most people have lived with anything. I'm interested in the beginning — not the first acquisition, but the first moment you realised art would stay.

Agnes Gund: It wasn't dramatic. I found that I didn't tire of looking. That was the first sign. Most things you grow tired of. Art — the right work — resists that. My first serious purchase was a Henry Moore sculpture. I felt guilty afterward. It seemed like so much money for something that didn't feed anyone. So I gave it to the Cleveland Museum of Art. I was young. I didn't yet understand that art does feed people. Just not in the way food does.

Nina Pinault: And yet you chose difficult work. Not decorative work.

Agnes Gund: I don't trust easy things. If a painting gives itself to you immediately, it usually leaves just as quickly. The works that stayed — the Rothko, the Twombly, the Johns, the Rauschenberg — were the ones that didn't resolve. They kept asking questions. I've never been comfortable with answers.

Nina Pinault: Tell me about the Rothko. You bought it directly from him in 1967. That was the same year you joined MoMA's International Council.

Agnes Gund: I went to his studio. It was quiet. He didn't say very much. I didn't say very much either. Emily Tremaine — she was a friend, a remarkable collector — had encouraged me to go. She said, "Just look. Don't talk. He doesn't like talk." So I stood there. For a long time. I chose the painting almost without understanding why. I couldn't explain it then. I can't explain it now. But I knew I couldn't leave without it. That's how you know.

Nina Pinault: No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe). It's nearly eight feet wide. It dominated whatever room it was in.

Agnes Gund: Yes. I've lived with it ever since. Fifty-eight years. It has moved with me from house to house. It has watched my children grow up. It has been there through marriages and divorces and deaths. People ask if it has changed. No. I have.

Nina Pinault: You also bought a Twombly from his annus mirabilis — 1961, painted in Rome. That work is pure energy. Chaos, almost. But held. What drew you to it?

Agnes Gund: Cy was a friend. A difficult man, but a friend. That painting — Untitled — it looks like Rome feels. The light. The dust. The weight of thousands of years. He painted it with his hands as much as his brush. You can see his fingers in the paint. I bought it because it asked nothing of me. It simply was. That's rare. Most art wants something from you — admiration, interpretation, a story. That Twombly just exists. It doesn't need you to explain it. It needs you to stand in front of it. That's enough.

Nina Pinault: And the Cornell? Untitled (Medici Princess). That's a different kind of work entirely. Quiet. Intimate. Almost shy.

Agnes Gund: Joseph Cornell made boxes. Little worlds. You look into them like you're looking through a keyhole. That one has a reproduction of Bronzino's portrait of Bia de' Medici — a child princess who died young. Around her, he placed little objects: a wooden ball, maps, glass shelves. It's about memory. About what we keep and what we lose. I've always been drawn to work that holds loss tenderly. Not mournfully. Tenderly. There's a difference.

Nina Pinault: You've also collected artists like Julie Mehretu, Nick Cave, Catherine Opie, Lynda Benglis. You were early on them. Before the market. Before the institutions.

Agnes Gund: I was early because I was paying attention. That's all it takes. You don't need a crystal ball. You need to look at what's happening and not be afraid of what you see. Ann Temkin at MoMA once said that the museum has "caught up with Aggie" on certain artists. That's not a compliment to me. It's an indictment of the institution. These artists were making important work for years before anyone paid attention. I bought because I believed. That's the job of a collector — to believe before there's proof.

Nina Pinault: You also believed in something else. You sold Masterpiece — the Lichtenstein — for $165 million to start the Art for Justice Fund. That was 2017. You were seventy-eight. Most people at that age are slowing down. You accelerated.

Agnes Gund: I read Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. I watched Ava DuVernay's 13th. I couldn't unsee what I'd seen. That painting had hung over my mantel for years. I loved it. But at some point, you have to ask: what is this for? Is it just for me? Or can it do something? The Lichtenstein could do something. So I sold it. It wasn't a sacrifice. It was a release. The painting became something else. It became reform. It became justice. That is more than any object can hope to be.

Nina Pinault: And then in 2023 — after the Dobbs decision — you sold another Lichtenstein, Mirror #5, for $3.1 million to support reproductive rights.

Agnes Gund: I was angry. I'm still angry. When the Court overturned Roe, I thought: what can I do? I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a legislator. I'm a collector. I have things. So I sold something. That money went to organizations fighting for women's autonomy. It wasn't enough. It will never be enough. But it was something. You do what you can with what you have. That's all any of us can do.

Nina Pinault: You and your late husband, Daniel Shapiro — he was an art lawyer. You married him in 1987. Did he shape your collecting?

Agnes Gund: Daniel taught me to read contracts. He taught me to ask questions. He also taught me that art is not just about the object. It's about the relationship between the object and the law — provenance, ownership, legacy. We divorced, but we remained friends. He was a good man. He understood that collecting is a kind of stewardship. You don't own art. You hold it for the next person. He died a few years ago. I miss his counsel.

Nina Pinault: You also had four children. How did they grow up with all of this? The Rothko. The Twombly. The Johns.

Agnes Gund: They grew up like any children. They didn't know it was special. That's the gift. Art was just there. Like furniture. Like windows. They didn't see masterpieces. They saw the walls of their home. My daughter Catherine is a filmmaker now. She made a documentary about Faith Ringgold's mural for women prisoners. The Art for Justice Fund supported some of the community programs around it. That's continuity. That's what you hope for — that the next generation picks up the work, but in their own way.

Nina Pinault: You also founded Studio in a School in 1977. That was in response to budget cuts. You were forty years old. You could have just written a cheque. Instead, you built an institution.

Agnes Gund: New York cut arts education from the public schools. I couldn't believe it. I thought: what kind of city does that? So I called some people. We started sending artists into classrooms. That was forty-eight years ago. It's still running. Thousands of children have had art because of that program. That matters more than any painting I own. A painting can change one person. Arts education can change a generation.

Nina Pinault: You also helped lead MoMA's expansion in the 1990s. The Taniguchi building. $858 million. You were president of the board for eleven years. That's a long time to carry that weight.

Agnes Gund: It was exhausting. And exhilarating. And exhausting again. But the museum needed to grow. It needed to show more of what it had. It needed to show work by women artists, by artists of colour, by artists who had been marginalised. That was my priority. Not just the building. What went inside the building. I'm proud of that. But I didn't do it alone. None of this is done alone. That's a myth — the solitary collector, the lone patron. There's always a community. There are always people who say yes when you ask.

Nina Pinault: You've donated more than eight hundred works to MoMA over your lifetime. Eight hundred. That's not collecting. That's building a public collection within a private one.

Agnes Gund: That's exactly what it is. I never understood collectors who hoard. What's the point? Art wants to be seen. If you keep it in your house, only your friends see it. That's not enough. Museums are democracy. They're the only place where anyone — regardless of wealth, regardless of education — can stand in front of a Rothko and have an experience. That's sacred. That's why I gave. That's why I'll keep giving.

Nina Pinault: You're eighty-six now, Agnes. You've been collecting for six decades. What have you learned?

Agnes Gund: That you don't need to understand something to love it. That uncertainty is not failure. That a painting can hold more than you can carry. I've also learned that the best collectors are the ones who listen — to artists, to curators, to the work itself. The worst collectors are the ones who only listen to the market. The market doesn't know anything. It only knows price. Price is not value. I've known that since 1967.

Nina Pinault: If you could start again — if you were thirty years old today — would you collect differently?

Agnes Gund: No. I would just pay closer attention, earlier. That's all. I would trust my eye faster. I would buy more work by women and artists of colour, sooner. But I wouldn't change the principle: buy what stays with you. Not what impresses your friends. Not what the auction houses tell you to buy. What stays with you.

Nina Pinault: Last question. What makes a work stay?

Agnes Gund: It refuses to leave. Not physically. You can sell it. Donate it. Lose it. That happens. But something remains. A way of seeing. A way of thinking. That's the real collection. The paintings themselves are just objects. What they leave behind — in you, in the world — that's the collection. That's what lasts.

"I have had that painting for fifty-eight years. I still don't know what it means. But I know I can't be in a room without it." — Agnes Gund on her 1967 Rothko, No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe)

End of transcript · Gstaad Gallery Archive · Shared with permission of the Gund Estate

'Cave Soundsuit' — A gift from Agnes Gund, celebrating her contributions as a patron of the arts and longtime Trustee of MoMA. Agnes Gund died on 18 September 2025, six months after this conversation. This transcript is published with the permission of her estate.

Selected Excerpts

Living with Art: A Conversation

Conversation · December 2024. Recorded at Gstaad Gallery, Gstaad.

Nina Pinault: Daniel, you've lived with these two works — the Rothko and the Richter — for thirty years. Tell me about the Rothko. How did you find it?

Daniel Saffran: I didn't find it. It found me. I was in Basel, in a private apartment. Evening. I had no intention of looking at anything that night. I was tired, frankly. But there it was. I spent three hours in front of it. I didn't take notes. I didn't photograph it. I just looked. The owner left me alone with it. He understood. Some paintings require silence. They don't perform for you. They wait.

Daniel Saffran: I bought it the next morning. I have never regretted it. Not once. You know when something is right. Not because you can explain it — but because you can't imagine the room without it.

Nina Pinault: And the Richter?

Daniel Saffran: The Richter came through Guy Wildenstein. He called and said: "There is a painting you should see." Not "buy." "See." Guy understood that you don't acquire art like you acquire furniture. He knew what I could live with. The Rothko challenges you quietly. It absorbs. It holds. The Richter challenges you loudly. It demands that you reckon with its surface, its history, its refusal to resolve. I wasn't sure about it for a long time. Years.

Daniel Saffran: I stopped looking at the Richter for two years. I covered it. I didn't want to admit that something in my own home made me feel uncertain. But it was still there. In the room. I knew it was there. That was enough. And then one morning — I don't remember what prompted it — I uncovered it. I started looking again. It hadn't changed. I had. That's when I understood what Guy meant.

Nina Pinault: You've spoken before about the difference between collecting and accumulation.

Daniel Saffran: Accumulation is appetite. Collecting is attention. Anyone with money can fill walls. The question is whether you're willing to be changed by what you bring into your life. Most people aren't. They want decoration. They want confirmation of their taste. But a serious work — a Rothko, a Richter, a Twombly — doesn't confirm anything. It unsettles. It asks things of you. The question is whether you're prepared to answer.

Nina Pinault: You've also been generous with emerging artists. Quietly. That's not something people associate with a collector of your generation.

Daniel Saffran: Because I don't announce it. Neither does Nina. What's the point of announcing? You find someone whose work has something — a quality you can't name but can feel — and you give them time. Time to work. Time to fail. Time to find their language. I've sat on floors in cold studios in Leipzig, in Berlin, in London. I've looked at work that wasn't ready. But I could see where it was going. That's the skill. Not recognising what's already finished. Recognising what's becoming.

Daniel Saffran: Nina shares that. She doesn't collect for trophy value. She collects for potential. She supports artists before the market notices them. That's rare. Most people wait for confirmation. They need auction records, institutional validation, a critic's approval. Nina trusts her eye. She always has. I respect that.

Nina Pinault: Arno, when did you realise the collection was not just a collection?

Arno Saffran: When I brought a friend home from university. He stopped in the doorway. He couldn't speak. I'd grown up with those paintings. I didn't see them anymore. They were just there. Like the furniture. Like the light in the afternoon. But he saw them. He couldn't move. That's when I understood that my father had built something that wasn't for us. It was for anyone who could look.

Nina Pinault: Daniel, what would you say to someone who wants to start collecting today?

Daniel Saffran: Don't collect for investment. Collect for company. A painting that only goes up in value is a painting you will sell. That's fine for some people. But a painting that stays with you — that becomes part of your days, your silences, your private hours — that's a companion. You don't sell companions. You also don't buy companions based on what you think they'll be worth in ten years. You buy them because you can't stop looking. Because the work follows you into other rooms. Because you find yourself thinking about it when you're not in front of it.

Daniel Saffran: And if you're going to collect seriously, learn to look slowly. Spend an hour with one painting. Not twenty minutes with ten. The market wants you to move quickly. The work wants you to stay.

Nina Pinault: You've also funded scholarships. Supported young artists at the Royal College of Art. Always privately. Why?

Daniel Saffran: Because art schools don't teach courage. They teach technique. They teach theory. But the thing that matters most — the willingness to make something that might fail — you can't teach that. You can only protect it. Give a young artist enough time and enough space, and they might find their voice. Ninety percent won't. That's fine. The ten percent who do — they change things. I wanted to be part of that without being in the way. A cheque doesn't have opinions. A cheque doesn't tell an artist what to paint. It just says: keep working.

Nina Pinault: Arno, you inherit this. The collection. The relationships. The responsibility. What does that mean to you?

Arno Saffran: It means I don't own them. I hold them. There's a difference. My father didn't collect for me. He collected for himself. He lived with these works because he needed them. But I am grateful to be the one who keeps looking. The collection will outlast me. That's the point. You're not an owner. You're a steward. You keep things safe for the next person who needs to see them.

Nina Pinault: And the emerging artists your father supported? What happens to them?

Arno Saffran: I continue the work. Quietly. Some of those artists are now in their forties and fifties. They have careers. They don't need my father's help anymore. But there are new ones. There are always young artists who need someone to believe in them before anyone else does. I'm not my father. But I can do what he did. I can look. I can listen. I can write a cheque without making a speech.

Daniel Saffran: That's all I ever wanted. Not a legacy. Just continuity.

Nina Pinault: Daniel, last question. What have these paintings taught you?

Daniel Saffran: That you don't need to understand something to love it. That uncertainty is not failure. That a painting can hold more than you can carry. And that the best things in your life — the ones that really matter — you don't plan for them. They find you. In Basel. In a private apartment. Evening. And if you're lucky, you have the good sense to say yes.

"I would not part with it even if I were to lose everything. Some things are not for sale. They are for keeping." — Daniel Saffran, on his 1958 Rothko

End of transcript · Gstaad Gallery Archive · Shared with permission of The Saffran Trust

Selected Excerpts