WOMEN’S CHAMPION
The gallerist Ursula Hauser on raising the profile of overlooked female artists
Ursula Hauser has never been one to court publicity; lately, however, the Swiss gallerist has had a change of heart. ‘I have begun to recognise that opening up my private art collection is a must,’ she explains. ‘I’ve been privileged to buy some unique pieces and, for the sake of the artists, I have to get them out there.’
It is this altruistic urge that has prompted her to exhibit, for the first time in the UK, a selection of her personal acquisitions at Hauser & Wirth’s Somerset outpost, Durslade Farm. The show, which features 70 works by contemporary and 20th-century female artists, is also a celebration of Ursula’s remarkable career as she approaches her 80th birthday. How did she develop her extraordinary collector’s instincts? ‘I’ve always loved art and had an eye for it,’ she says, ‘but I had to wait until my children had left home to live my passion.’
The story of Hauser & Wirth goes back to 1992, when Ursula went into partnership with an ambitious 19-year-old called Iwan Wirth to open a small gallery in Zurich, using the fortune she had accumulated through the retail business she had co-founded. Her daughter, Manuela, agreed to join, initially as a part-time secretary; in the best possible version of a fairy tale, she ended up falling in love with both the business and Iwan, whom she married in 1996. Today, the couple work side by side to run the gallery, which has grown into an international success story with spaces in Switzerland, New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, London and Somerset. Ursula remains their guiding light, and travels regularly with her daughter to see museum shows, attend fairs and visit artists’ studios.
‘My mother has always been my role model – she’s open-minded, and still so young at heart, so curious,’ says Manuela, who is sitting in on our interview at Hauser & Wirth’s Mayfair gallery, having co-curated the Somerset exhibition in Ursula’s honour. The decision to focus on female artists reflects the fact that women have historically found it more difficult to thrive creatively. ‘For the older generation in particular, it was hard to find a way of showing their work – no main galleries were interested,’ says Ursula. ‘That’s why they need collectors like me.’
Browsing through a list of the works Manuela has helped select, Ursula launches into a series of touching anecdotes, slipping mid-sentence from English into her native German when she wants to express her depth of feeling for a particular artist. She recounts how, after acquiring an edition of Louise Bourgeois’s Legs, she began paying visits to the sculptor in her New York studio to see behind the scenes of her latest projects. ‘Louise had such an energy and presence,’ recalls Ursula. ‘I’ll never forget her hands – they were old and wrinkled, yet still so alive and alert.’ Then there’s the Welsh-born artist Sylvia Sleigh, who was in her nineties and still relatively unknown when Ursula began collecting her portraits. Soon, they were taking tea at her Brooklyn home (‘We just connected’). After her friend died, leaving no family, Ursula paid her the ultimate tribute by purchasing her house, restoring many of its original features and filling it with her paintings. ‘That’s how I handle art,’ she explains. ‘I don’t just buy it and put it in storage, I live with it around me.’
Just as Ursula is safeguarding the legacy of artists such as Sleigh by building a living monument to their memory, so Manuela is paying homage to her mother through the Somerset show. With their mutual affection as the driving force, it is – like everything that Hauser & Wirth does – a project with people at its heart. ‘Unconscious Landscape. Works from the Ursula Hauser Collection’ is at Hauser & Wirth Somerset (www.hauserwirth.com) from 25 May to 8 September.