Neue Galerie Celebrates 20 Years With a Comprehensive Look at the Ronald S. Lauder Collection

To honor the 20th anniversary of New York City’s Neue Galerie Ronald S. Lauder, in a collaborative effort with his curatorial team led by APAA member Elizabeth Szancer, is sharing a comprehensive look at his collection.

“This is the one time that he decided to make his private rooms available to the public—and given the scope of the project, it will likely never happen again,” Neue Galerie Director Renée Price told Artnet News. “The works selected for the exhibition were chosen by Mr. Lauder himself, and arranged at the Neue Galerie in a manner that reflects how they are displayed in his home. The presentation demonstrates a unique, private taste—a vision.”

According to Gabé Hirschowitz in Artnet News, Mr. Lauder has three classifications of art: “Oh,” “Oh my,” and “Oh my God!”—and he only collects the last of these. As a result, he says, “It is impossible for me to choose a favorite work from my collection. When I love an artwork and decide to acquire it, I don’t fall out of love with it. I just get to know it better.”

Jason Farago of The New York Times writes that an “unexpected delight” is the memorabilia from Mr. Lauder’s favorite movie, Casablanca. In a link to Neue Galerie’s focus on German and Austrian art, numerous members of Casablanca’s cast and crew were Jewish refugees or anti-Nazi exiles that helped build mid-century American culture.

According to Lauder, “The exhibition reflects the evolution of my collecting interests over the course of the past decade, as highlights from my collection were first presented at the Neue Galerie for the museum’s 10th anniversary. Over the past ten years, I became interested in new areas, including antiquities and gold ground paintings, rekindled my interests in Old Masters, and deepened existing areas of my collection.”

The Ronald S. Lauder Collection
Through Feb. 13, Neue Galerie New York, 1048 Fifth Avenue, 212-628-6200; neuegalerie.org

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