Heidi Horten (née Jelinek; 13 February 1941 – 12 June 2022) was an Austrian billionaire and art collector. She was the widow of businessman

Helmut Horten Helmut Horten (8 January 1909 Bonn – 30 November 1987, Croglio, Switzerland) was a German entrepreneur who built up and owned the fourth-largest chain of department stores in Germany: the Horten AG. Early life Helmut Horten was born on Janu ...

. In May 2020 ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'' estimated her net worth at US$3.0 billion.

Biography

Horten inherited her wealth upon the death of her husband, the founder of the German department store business

Horten AG Horten AG (Aktiengesellschaft) was a German department store chain founded by Helmut Horten in 1936 and headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany. With up to 80 stores throughout Germany, Horten ranked fourth-largest among German department store ch ...

. Horten met her husband when she was 19; he was 32 years older than her. Horten was part of the board of Helmut Horten Stiftung, a charitable foundation that supports various healthcare related institutions, funds medical research, and helps individuals in need. Eixi-carinthiaVII

Horten divided her time between Vienna, Austria, and

Ticino Ticino (), sometimes Tessin (), officially the Republic and Canton of Ticino or less formally the Canton of Ticino,, informally ''Canton Ticino'' ; lmo, Canton Tesin ; german: Kanton Tessin ; french: Canton du Tessin ; rm, Chantun dal Tessin . ...

, Switzerland, when in Europe, and

Lyford Cay Lyford Cay is a private gated community located on the western tip of New Providence island in The Bahamas. The former cay that lent its name to the community is named after Captain William Lyford Jr., a mariner of note in Colonial and Revoluti ...

the Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the ar ...

. Horten owned the '' Carinthia VII'', a 315-foot yacht. She enjoyed hunting and art collecting. Horten sold the 35.56 carat

Wittelsbach Diamond The Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond is a deep-blue diamond with internally flawless clarity, originating in the Kollur Mine, India. Laurence Graff purchased the Wittelsbach Diamond in 2008 for £16.4 million. In 2010, Graff revealed he had h ...

, formerly part of the Crown Jewels of Bavaria, for $24 million in 2008. In August 2019, it emerged that Horten had donated almost one million euros in 2018 and in 2019 to the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP).

Art collection

Horten amassed an art collection of over 500 works, which included paintings by

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

, Marc Chagall, Jean-Michel Basquiat,

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...

Gerhard Richter Gerhard Richter (; born 9 February 1932) is a German visual artist. Richter has produced abstract as well as photorealistic paintings, and also photographs and glass pieces. He is widely regarded as one of the most important contemporary Germa ...

, Georg Baselitz, and

Yves Klein Yves Klein (; 28 April 1928 – 6 June 1962) was a French artist and an important figure in post-war European art. He was a leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by art critic Pierre Restany. Klein w ...

. In 2018, 170 works from the Heidi Horten Collection were exhibited at

Leopold Museum The Leopold Museum, housed in the Museumsquartier in Vienna, Austria, is home to one of the largest collections of modern Austrian art, featuring artists such as Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka and Richard Gerstl. It contains the w ...

in Vienna. In 2019, Horten announced plans to open a private museum, having bought a 155-year-old, mansion in Vienna to house the collection. Designed by architects Marie-Therese Harnoncourt-Fuchs and Ernst Fuchs, the museum opened to the public in 2022. Following Horten's death, her jewellery collection was being auctioned by Christie's in May 2023. The auction set a record for the most valuable single collection of jewels, fetching million (million). Following controversy over the source of the Horten fortune, Christie's announced that a portion of the proceeds would be contributed to

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

education and related causes.

Biography

Art collection

References

Further reading