Helga de Alvear ( Müller Schätzel, 1936 – 2 February 2025) was a German-Spanish art collector and dealer of contemporary art. Living in Madrid from 1959, where she had personal contact to the art scene, she began to collect contemporary art by Spanish and international artists in 1967, over decades more than 3000 works by more than 500 artists. She opened her own gallery, Galería Helga de Alvear, in 1995. In 2006, she began to share her collection with the public in a foundation with the

Government of Extremadura A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a mea ...

. A museum in a house in the historic district of Cáceres opened in 2010. A new annex expanding it was built from 2015 and opened in 2021. The museum, then called Museum of Contemporary Art Helga de Alvear, displays around 5% of her collection.

Background

Helga Müller Schätzel was born in

Kirn Kirn () is a town in the Bad Kreuznach (district), Bad Kreuznach Districts of Germany, district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Kirner Land. Kirn is a Central place theory, middle centre serving an area ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

(now in

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

), in 1936. She attended the Salem boarding school near

Lake Constance Lake Constance (, ) refers to three bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (''Obersee''), Lower Lake Constance (''Untersee''), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein (). These ...

, and subsequently studied in

Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ...

and

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

to learn French. She furthered her studies afterwards in London for a year. In 1957, she travelled to Spain to learn Spanish; she met the

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Jaime de Alvear there. They married in 1959 and took residence in Madrid.

Career

Beginnings

Her husband introduced de Alvear to the Madrid art scene. In 1967 de Alvear met the art dealer

Juana Mordó Juana Mordó (April 26, 1899 – March 12, 1984) was born in Thessaloniki, Ottoman Empire (now Greece) and was an art dealer and gallery director in Madrid, Spain. Early years Juana Naar Scialom was born in Thessaloniki, Salonica, then part ...

at a private gathering, who became her close friend. De Alvear began to collect art. During the Franco regime, she met artists from the Cuenca group around and from the El Paso group. In January 1980, she started working at the Juana Mordó Gallery where she honed her knowledge about the international art scene. Subsequently, she was involved in establishing an international art fair, ARCO, in 1982, which increased Spain's involvement in the international contemporary art scene. When Mordó died in 1984, she took over the gallery and over the next 10 years, continued following in the artistic and professional footsteps of her mentor.

Galería Helga de Alvear

In 1995, De Alvear opened her own gallery under her name in a space measuring more than 900 square meters next to the Reina Sofía Museum. Many of her projects championed international contemporary art with a special emphasis on photography, video and installation, at a time when these mediums were practically unknown in Spain. Her gallery was one of the best-established and longest-running art galleries on the Spanish scene and has earned international acclaim. The gallery has presented works from artists including

Angela Bulloch Angela Bulloch (born 1966 in Rainy River, Ontario, Canada), is a Canadian artist who often works with sound and installation; she is recognised as one of the Young British Artists. Bulloch lives and works in Berlin. Life and career Bulloch stud ...

,Brown, Kate (11 February 2021)
A Wholly Revamped Museum Will Open in Spain to House the Contemporary Art Collection of Dealer Helga de Alvear
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Artnet Artnet.com is an art market website. It is operated by Artnet Worldwide Corporation, which has headquarters in New York City. It is owned by Artnet AG, a German publicly-traded company based in Berlin that is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Ex ...

''.

Thomas Demand Thomas Cyrill Demand (born 1964) is a German sculptor and photographer. He currently lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles, and teaches at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg. He makes photographs of three-dimensional models that look like ...

Elmgreen & Dragset Michael Elmgreen (born 1961; Copenhagen, Denmark) and Ingar Dragset (born 1969; Trondheim, Norway) have worked together as an artist duo since 1995. Their work explores the relationship between art, architecture and design. Elmgreen & Dragset li ...

Axel Hütte,Robin Cembalest (1 January 2010)
A Dealer With Ideas
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ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American art magazine, based in New York City. It covers visual arts from ancient to contemporary times. It is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. ''ARTnews'' has a readership of 180,000 in 124 co ...

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Isaac Julien Sir Isaac Julien (born 21 February 1960Annette Kuhn"Julien, Isaac (1960–)" BFI Screen Online.) is a British installation artist, filmmaker, and Distinguished Professor of the Arts at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Early life Juli ...

Imi Knoebel Imi Knoebel (/i:mi: kno:ʊbəl/) (born Klaus Wolf Knoebel; 31 December 1940) is a German artist. Knoebel is known for his minimalist, abstract painting and sculpture. The "Messerschnitt" or "knife cuts," is a recurring technique he employs, al ...

, Karin Sander and

Santiago Sierra Santiago Sierra (born 1966) is a Spanish artist, known for performance art and installation art. Much of his work deals with the topic of social inequities. He lives in Madrid. Career Sierra's most well-known works involve hiring laborers to co ...

Museum of Contemporary Art Helga de Alvear

De Alvear's collection, including more than 3,000 pieces by Spanish and international artists, became part of the Fundación Helga de Alvear in 2006, in a joint initiative with the Regional Government of Extremadura. The first phase of the Fundación Helga de Alvear Visual Arts Centre, based in an early 20th-century building known as Casa Grande, opened in the historic quarter of Cáceres in 2010. In 2015, Spanish architects

Mansilla + Tuñón Architects Mansilla may refer to: *Mansilla (surname), a Spanish surname *Mansilla de la Sierra, a place in Spain *Mansilla de las Mulas, a place in Spain *Mansilla Mayor, a place in Spain *Gobernador Mansilla Gobernador Mansilla is a village and municipali ...

built a 8,000 sq. m. annexe building, inaugurated on 25 February 2021. The name of the museum was then changed to Museum of Contemporary Art Helga de Alvear. The cost of the new museum was around €10 million with half of the funds coming from de Alvear and half from institutions in Extremadura. The mission of the collection is also to contribute to public awareness about art, and it often lends out works to institutions around the world. In addition, it has been the subject of a number of in-depth exhibitions. As of 2021, the Museum presents a selection of around 200 works, around 5% of de Alvear's collection, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, video art, drawings and installations by more than 500 international artists. The semi-permanent exhibition allows the public to explore works by

Josef Albers Josef Albers ( , , ; March 19, 1888March 25, 1976) was a German-born American artist and Visual arts education, educator who is considered one of the most influential 20th-century art teachers in the United States. Born in 1888 in Bottrop, Westp ...

Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( ; ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and Aesthetics, art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism and sociology. With Heinrich Böll, , Caroline Tisdall, Rober ...

Dan Flavin Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933 – November 29, 1996) was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures. Early life and career Daniel Nicholas Flavi ...

Nan Goldin Nancy Goldin (born 1953) is an American photographer and activist. Her work explores in snapshot-style the emotions of the individual, in intimate relationships, and the Bohemian style, bohemian LGBT subcultural communities, especially dealing w ...

Jenny Holzer Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950) is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in Hoosick, New York. Her work focuses on the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces and includes large-scale installations, advertising billboards, projectio ...

Anish Kapoor Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor (born 12 March 1954) is a British sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. Born in Mumbai, Kapoor attended the elite all-boys Indian boarding school The Doon School, before moving to the United Ki ...

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

Gordon Matta-Clark Gordon Matta-Clark (born Gordon Roberto Matta-Echaurren; June 22, 1943 – August 27, 1978) was an American artist best known for site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s. He was also a pioneer in the field of socially engaged food art. ...

and

Philippe Parreno Philippe Parreno (born 1964 in Grenoble, France) is a French contemporary artist, living and working in Paris. His works include films, Installation art, installations, performances, drawings, and text. Parreno's work centers around both expand ...

. It also houses artworks by

Louise Bourgeois Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...

Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...

Carmen Laffón María del Carmen Laffón de la Escosura (8 October 1934 – 7 November 2021) was a Spanish figurative painter and sculptor. She was a member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando from 1998 until her death, and received numerous a ...

Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionism, abstract expressionist Painting, painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of th ...

Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

, Tàpies, and

Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei ( ; , IPA: ; born 28 August 1957) is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. As an activist, he has been ...

, among others. In addition, the museum has an outdoor garden featuring a sculpture of a hundred-year-old olive tree by

Ugo Rondinone Ugo Rondinone (born November 30, 1964) is a Swiss-born contemporary artist. Rondinone is known for his temporary, large-scale land art sculpture, '' Seven Magic Mountains'' (2016–2021), with its seven fluorescently-painted totems of large ...

, and is connected to the facilities of the former Helga de Alvear Visual Arts Centre in the refurbished Casa Grande.

Personal life and other activities

De Alvear was married to Jaime de Alvear from 1959. The couple lived in Madrid and had three children, Maria, Ana and Patricia. Amid the

COVID-19 pandemic in Spain The COVID-19 pandemic in Spain has resulted in confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths. The virus was first confirmed to have spread to Spain on 31 January 2020, when a German tourist tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in La Gomera, Canary Island ...

, de Alvear donated €1 million (about $1.1 million) to research for a vaccine. The funds were directed toward scientific work conducted by Luis Enjuanes, a virologist for the

Spanish National Research Council The Spanish National Research Council (, CSIC) is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe. Its main objective is to develop and promote research that will help bring about scientific and techn ...

(CSIC). De Alvear died in Madrid on 2 February 2025, at the age of 88.

Recognitions

De Alvear was awarded the

Medal of Extremadura The Medal of Extremadura () is the highest institutional distinction of the Autonomous Community of Extremadura, Spain. It was established in 1986, following Decree 27/1986, of 29 April. It is an annual award, whose number may vary, without exceed ...

in 2007, the

Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts The Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts () is awarded by the Ministry of Culture and Sport of Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featurin ...

bestowed by the Spanish Ministry of Culture in 2008, the Medal of Cáceres in 2011 and Fundación Arte y Mecenazgo Award in the category of Collector in 2012, among other recognitions. She was awarded the Medalla Internacional de las Artes from Madrid in 2020.

References

External links

*
Official website of Museum of Contemporary Art Helga de Alvear, Cáceres
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alvear, Helga de 1936 births 2025 deaths Alumni of Schule Schloss Salem German art collectors German emigrants to Spain German expatriates in Switzerland German expatriates in the United Kingdom Spanish art collectors Women art dealers German art dealers Spanish art dealers