Marguerite Hoffman

DALLAS, TEXAS–The recently published book Amor Mundi: The Collection of Marguerite Steed Hoffman (Ridinghouse) explores the collecting journey that Hoffman shared with her late husband, Robert Hoffman. She’s best known for her contemporary collection of American and European masters of 20th-century art through the present — works that will go to the DMA upon her death. “I also have a soft spot for women artists that have been overlooked, and I’m excited about the intentional addition of BIPOC artists to the collection,” she says. “The collection needs to reflect the world in which the artwork was created.”

ART:

Philip Guston, Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, Peter Doig, Maria Lassnig, Steve McQueen, Joseph Beuys, Marcel Duchamp, Willem de Kooning, Cy Twombly, Ellsworth Kelly, Gerhard Richter

CV:

She recently published the book Amor Mundi: The Collection of Marguerite Steed Hoffman (Ridinghouse), which explores the journey she shared with her late husband, Robert Hoffman; “I have a soft spot for women artists that have been overlooked, and I’m excited about the intentional addition of BIPOC artists to the collection,” she says.

Q&A

When you started collecting — and why.

I started collecting when I had a roof and four walls in the mid-’80s — very modestly, but it felt important to me. I was trained as an art historian and had taught for one year, so I had a lot of visual memory of great historical things and have always felt it was critical to live with things that challenge us or soothe us. Things that are created by artists who have a sense of the world that I just don’t have access to. I also collect medieval illuminated Books of Hours and antiquities.

How you would describe your collection.

The collection that most people are familiar with and the collection that will go to the Dallas Museum of Art on my death is the “contemporary” collection composed of American and European masters of 20th-century art up to work that was created yesterday. I have a soft spot for women artists that have been overlooked and I am excited about the intentional addition of BIPOC artists to the collection. These works are now in a private collection, but they are going to a public institution. The collection needs to reflect the world in which the artwork was created.

Arts nonprofits in Texas you support whose mission resonates with you.

I have been a decades-long supporter of the DMA, but now my energies are turned towards the Trinity Park Conservancy and creating a 200-plus-acre urban park embracing the Trinity River. This park will connect different parts of the city that are currently separated and be a great park for all Dallasites.