George Ortiz (1927–2013) was a collector who assembled what is considered to be one of the "finest collection of antiquities in private hands".
Biography
George Ortiz was born in Paris May 10, 1927. His father, Jorge Ortiz Linares, was Ambassador of Bolivia to France, and his mother Graziella was the daughter of the Bolivian tin mining magnate
Simón I. Patiño. George Ortiz studied in France, UK and USA. In 1949, a trip to Greece revealed a passion for antique objects. He begins collecting and over the ensuing decades forms "one of the world's greatest private collections of ancient and tribal art". He died in Geneva October 8, 2013.
The George Ortiz Collection
The George Ortiz Collection is a selection of some 280 masterpieces from the collection that was exhibited in the
Hermitage Museum
The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the largest ...
(Saint Petersburg), the
Pushkin Museum (Moscow), the
Royal Academy (London) and the
Altes Museum
The Altes Museum (English: ''Old Museum'') is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. Built from 1825 to 1830 by order of King Frederick William III of Prussia according to plans by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, it i ...
(Berlin).
At the time he was criticized by some for having exported works from their countries of origin.
In 1961 he was accused of having stolen property in his collection. This was resolved 15 years later when he was given a short suspended sentence. He campaigned against the 1970
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
and 1995
UNIDROIT
UNIDROIT (formally, the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law; French: ''Institut international pour l'unification du droit privé'') is an intergovernmental organization whose objective is to harmonize international privat ...
conventions restricting the export of cultural objects.
In 1978 Ortiz held an auction to sell many of his collected works from Africa and the Pacific to recover the reported $2 million that he had paid the year before as ransom when his daughter had been kidnapped.
Included in that collection was the Motonui ''epa'', Māori carved wood panels from a storehouse, that Ortiz had purchased for US$65,000 then taken to Switzerland.
The New Zealand courts claimed Ortiz had violated their laws against export of national treasures.
After years of negotiation, and Ortiz's death in 2013, the Motonui panels were purchased by the New Zealand government for NZ$4.5 million, and in March 2014 they were deposited in
Puke Ariki
Puke Ariki is a combined museum and library at New Plymouth, New Zealand which opened in June 2003. It is an amalgamation of the New Plymouth Public Library (founded in 1848) and the Taranaki Museum (founded in 1919). Its name, Māori for "hill ...
Museum in
New Plymouth.
Bibliography
*Catalogue: The George Ortiz Collection (Benteli Publishers Ltd., Bern, 1993, )
*Sales catalogue Sotheby's 29 June 1978
References
External links
*
* http://www.lejournaldesarts.fr/jda/archives/docs_article/77139/jean-paul-barbier-george-ortiz-portraits-croises-de-deux-collectionneurs.php
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ortiz, George
1927 births
2013 deaths
Collectors from Paris
French expatriates in Switzerland