Eli Broad - Art Collection

Art Collection

Broad’s interest in art was born in 1973; the first work he bought was a Van Gogh drawing entitled "Cabanes a Saintes-Maries" 1888). Usually, his trajectory as an art collector is traced to mentoring by the late Taft Schreiber. At first, the Broads assembled a notable collection of works by Miró, Picasso and Matisse. Eventually, the pair began to concentrate on post-World War II paintings, at times selling some of their original purchases to fund new ones. Larry Gagosian is credited to be Broad's most important advisor and dealer when purchasing works of art.

When they ran out of wall space in their home, Eli and Edythe Broad pioneered a lending library for contemporary art. The Broad Art Foundation, which they established in 1984, has made more than 7,800 loans to more than 485 museums and university galleries worldwide. The Broads' have two collections—a personal collection with nearly 500 works and The Broad Art Foundation's collection, which has approximately 1,500 works Modern and contemporary art. The collection was one of the most sought-after by museums in the U.S., until January 2008, when Broad and his wife decided that their personal collection would ultimately go to their foundation to make loans to museums rather than give any of the art away. In 1988, architect Frederick Fisher designed office space, archives and extensive private galleries for the Broad Art Foundation in a former telephone switching station in the Ocean Park section of Santa Monica. On August 23, 2010 the Broads formally announced that they would build and endow a museum to house the Broad Collections, on a Grand Avenue site owned by the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency in downtown Los Angeles across the street from Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Some of the best-known works are by contemporary artists including:

• John Baldessari's two text paintings from 1967–68.
• Jasper Johns – flag paintings (1960 and 1967), mixed-media "Watchman" (1964), "hatch" (1975)
• Jeff Koons – fluorescent-lighted vacuum cleaners (1981), floating basketballs and bronze lifeboat (both 1985), stainless-steel bunny rabbit (1986), "Bubbles," a life-size porcelain portrait of Michael Jackson and his pet chimpanzee (1988) bought on May 15, 2001 for 5.6M, the first "Balloon Dog" (1994, in blue), and a "Cracked Egg" purchased for $3.5 million in 2006. Broad owns more than 20 Koons pieces, and donated €640,000 ($900,000) to help sponsor a 2008 Koons retrospective at Versailles (with fellow Koons collector François Pinault).
• Roy Lichtenstein – three comic strip paintings (1962–65) and his 1969 abstraction of a mirror. In November 1994, Broad purchased "I...I'm Sorry" for $2.5 million USD at a Sotheby's auction, paid with his American Express credit card, and thereby earned 2.5 million frequent flyer miles.
• Robert Rauschenberg – 1954 red abstraction.
• Damien Hirst – Away From the Flock.
• Edward Ruscha's first word painting, "Boss" (1961) and his 1964 picture of Norm's La Cienega Boulevard restaurant on fire.
• Cindy Sherman – twelve photographs from 1977–80 photographs.
• David Smith – Cubi XXVIII, executed in 1965. Broad's October 2005 purchase at a Sotheby's auction set a contemporary art auction record of $23,816,000. Broad claimed he had "been looking for a Cubi for more than a decade...I knew it would go way over the estimate and I was prepared, frankly, to pay more than what I bid."
• Andy Warhol's advertising image, "Where's your rupture?", two Marilyn Monroe images, a twenty-fold silkscreen of Jackie Kennedy, an Elvis, a dance diagram, a wanted poster, an electric chair and a Campbell's soup can—clam chowder, Manhattan style (purchased for $11.8 million) – all from 1961 to 1967.