The New Hess Art Collection Catalogue

For Donald M. Hess, collecting art is not simply about compiling objects, it is a practice urged by a deep conviction that artists are the subconscious voice of our collective mind.

“People make the mistake of thinking artists function only on the fringe, as indicators of issues demanding our attention” says Hess. “We sometimes go to see their works in galleries or museums but forget that they have a crucial role in everything we know in our daily lives.”

Hess notes that artists make a powerful mark on “non-artistic efforts” like science, business, marketing and even political campaigns.

“Artists are the people who process all the input from culture and use it to make our world sensually intriguing,” Hess says. “They give culture the tangible cement that defines it and holds it together.”

It is from this passion that Hess continued to collect art and learn from artists over the past 40 years.

“A Swiss artist named Rolf Iseli taught me as a young businessman that I had a responsibility to engage in business that respected the Earth,” Hess says. “At first, it took some uncomfortable stretching on my part to understand and accept what he was telling me, but he convinced me.  I focused only on naturally-based industries from that point on.” 

Rolf Iseli is one of 65 artists whom Donald Hess has supported over the long term.  By design, the collection and the catalogue show works over the span of an artist’s career as Hess devotedly follows their work.   The Hess Art Collection catalogue gives homage to the artists whose work it contains.  The brief texts about each of them are not pedantic attempts to render and deliver their works in easily swallowed packets, but rather sincere statements by the artists intended to spur thought and further investigation. 

Equal attention is given to iconic artists like Robert Rauschenberg or Francis Bacon, and talents still to be discovered like the San Francisco Bay Area’s Hifumi Ogawa and Robilee Frederick.

“Collecting for Donald Hess is not about amassing pieces for their future auction values, or what experts say is important,” says Robert Ceballos, Museum Director at The Hess Art Museum at the Hess Collection Winery.  “Rather, it is an individual passion, so he gathers works that he likes regardless of the artists fame, or lack thereof. He wants to be challenged and shown new ideas and different points of view and makes the effort to maintain relationships with and support the artists over the long term.”

The collection has grown from 250 pieces when the first Hess Collection catalogue was released in 1989 to more than 1,000 today.

“This new Hess Art Collection Catalogue was a logical and appropriate step in sharing the dynamism of this major collection with a broader public,” says Ceballos. “Donald Hess kept an amazingly good collector’s eye over the years and assembled a very respectable collection of contemporary art that many say rivals major museum collections.  People should know about this little visited gem off the beaten path in the hills of Napa Valley.”

The Hess Art Collection Catalogue is available in Hardback for $75 through the Hess Collection Winery website, or at its Visitor Centre.

Catalogue Details

The hardcover book presents the works of 52 artists of the Hess Art Collection from all over the world, a statement by each artist about his or her art and introductions by Donald Hess and Curator, Myrtha Steiner.  $75 retail.

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Andy Goldsworthy  |  Surface Tension

Robert Ceballos, Director of the Hess Art Museum, recently oversaw the installation of the newest addition to our Contemporary Art Museum, a permanent screen work by Andy Goldsworthy.  Originally produced by Goldsworthy in 1991 and acquired by Donald Hess in 1993, Goldsworthy's Surface Tension is truly breathtaking and a must see! The intricate 10x 15 foot lattice, comprised entirely of leaf stalks from a Horse Chestnut tree, is held together by hawthorn thorns and tensioned between two standing walls, floor and ceiling. No glue or hardware are used in the work.  Completed after 14 hours of work by Goldsworthy, this is the first time the piece has been reassembled since its purchase.

John Connell  |  Drawings and Sculptures

July 2009 – July 2010

 A collection of drawings and sculptures by Maine-based artist John Connell are on display from July 2009 – July 2010. The artist describes his sculptures as “life specific” gestures made of the most impermanent of materials: Newspaper dipped and smeared with tar and wax, applied to an armature of wire and wood.  He does large expressive paintings that often are abstracted landscapes used as backdrops for enormous installations in which hundreds of his sculptures stand frozen in a moment of interaction, as he puts it, “laughing, fighting, making love, resting or conversing.” Smaller works, such as his preparatory sketches for installations, have an extraordinary gestural quality that show a sublime understanding of the human form and its movement.  Often in these smaller works, there is a very classical approach akin to studies drawn by European masters.  The quick, gestural and deliberately raw quality of his work speaks strongly of human fragility and the fleeting quality of our lives.

Yue Minjun  |  Self Portrait

On July 3rd we installed a large painting titled Self Portrait by Yue Minjun.  It is prominently displayed above one of the landings of the museum foyer.  The painting becomes interactive as you climb the stairs to the various floors to see it at different angles.  Minjun is famously known for cartoon-like oil paintings depicting himself in various settings, frozen in a moment of exaggerated laughter.  The self portraits often are interpreted by western art critics as a satirical response to the Chinese government's demand that its citizens hide discontent from the outside world and always present a happy face.  He also has made humorous paintings that reference iconic images from western art – his head atop the famous image of Marilyn Monroe standing over a subway vent is one such example or his head on the figures from a painting by Velazquez.  Minjun has also reproduced his image in sculpture, watercolor and prints.

Theodoros Stamos  |  Tundra

Stamos’ painting Tundra is again on permanent display at the Hess Art Museum.  The work was removed in 1996 for loan to a Stamos retrospective at the National Gallery, Alexandros Soutzos Museum in Athens following the artist’s death.  Recent changes to our museum space created a wall that was in the perfect location for us to re-exhibit this work,” says Robert Ceballos, Director of the Hess Art Museum.  The work is now exhibited along with another five paintings by Stamos.

Hifumi Ogawa  |  Paintings

October 2008 – October 2009

Hifumi Ogawa is a Japanese artist who came to the USA to study, and now resides and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is one of two local artists whose works are shown at the Hess Art Museum, where five of her paintings are on temporary display until October 2009.  Donald Hess first bought a painting from her in 1994 when she was a new graduate from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California.  “It says a lot about Hess’ style of collecting that he supported an unknown artist who had just graduated from school,” says Robert Ceballos.  “Within the collection, her works stand apart as unique, but they also more than hold their own with the Francis Bacons on the opposing wall.  Her paintings act as both a counter balance and complement to that particular gravitas that is so inexorably Bacon.  People often see a sort of haunted quality to Ogawa’s work, but if you look past the shadows in some of her paintings, there is also a very refreshing and childlike playfulness in them.”