Tom Hill’s Private Museum, Way Station to the Met?

Robin Pogrebin lets the recorder run with J. Tomilson Hill of Blackstone as he talks about his new private museum that will open on the site of the former Getty station in Chelsea on 24th and 10th. The condo building will include a space to house the two-floor Hill Art Foundation where portions of Hill’s collection and works borrowed from others will hang in rotating shows:

In preparing for this venture, Mr. Hill said he considered other private museums, including the financier Glenn Fuhrman’s FLAG Art Foundation in Chelsea; the oil trader Andrew Hall’s art foundation in Germany; and the billionaire industrialist Mitchell P. Rales’s Glenstone museum in Potomac, Md. […]

“He has great things,” said the dealer Matthew Marks, from whom Mr. Hill recently purchased a Robert Gober sculpture that will permanently reside in the new gallery.

Some time ago, the Hills decided to collect in depth, which Mr. Hill defines as owning “at least four” works by an artist.

They originally concentrated on eight: Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Cy Twombly, Mr. Ruscha, Bryce Marden, Lucio Fontana and Agnes Martin. More recently, they added Mr. Wool and Mark Grotjahn.

“I had an amazing Rothko but couldn’t find another three,” Mr. Hill said. “I sold the Rothko to buy another Bacon.”

The future of the Hill Art Collection may not be in Chelsea over the long term. Hill is on Christie’s advisory board and the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He makes liberal use of his access to the Met’s new Contemporary curator, Sheena Wagstaff, and there’s every reason to believe his collection will ultimately find its way there.

Mr. Hill said much of his collection might ultimately end up at the Met, which is eager for major Modern and contemporary donations. “The Met needs everything I’ve got,” he said.

A Billionaire Is Opening a Private Art Museum in Manhattan  (The New York Times)