About this ebook
Different aspects of his rich background are revealed in the intergenerational dialogue he establishes with the co-author, in which he reviews his main collections, his interest in and support for fundamental Argentine artists —such as Grete Stern, Antonio Berni, Líbero Badii, Clorindo Testa, Alberto Heredia, Edgardo A. Vigo, Jorge de la Vega, Alberto Greco, Juan Carlos Distéfano, Víctor Grippo, Pablo Suárez, Liliana Porter, Graciela Sacco and Guillermo Kuitca— and his close ties with other collectors, managers, key players and personalities from the international art scene over the course of four decades. The book is aimed at anyone interested in the behind-the-scenes of art management and art collecting in the last century. The reader will find here a fluid, personal and entertaining narrative that weaves anecdotes, memories and thoughts into a valuable testimony.
About the author
Jorge Helft (París, 1934), is the son of Jacques Helft, an antique dealer, and Marianne Loevi (both French of Jewish origin). He lived in Paris until 1940, when he had to escape the country to avoid the humiliations of the Holocaust. His family settled first in New York (from 1940 to 1947) and then in Buenos Aires (from 1947 to 2015), where he created the Fundación San Telmo (1980-1993) and directed the Fundación Antorchas (1985-1993). He is a founding member of the Fundación Teatro Colón, he has been a member of the ICOM board of directors for the Argentine Section (1991-1994) and a curator of the Argentine submissions to the São Paulo Biennial in 1994 and 1996. He has collected Argentine and international contemporary art since the 1960s. He has also devised and coordinated more than 160 exhibitions in 8 countries.
He was a central figure in the artistic and cultural scene of the region between the 1980s and 1990s, introducing national art into international circuits, and managing to stand out as one of the major points of reference for new collectors.
Magalí Saleme (Buenos Aires, 1992) has a degree in Art (UP) and a Master’s degree in History of Argentine and Latin-American Art from IDAES-UNSAM. Under the supervision of María Isabel Baldasarre, Magalí is researching on the private art collecting in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century in the city of Buenos Aires. Her thesis focuses on the contemporary art collection that Jorge Helft built from the 1960s onwards, together with other artistic initiatives that structured a large part of the practices that survive in our environment.
