Olga Zatorsky Hirshhorn, American art collector, died at 95

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Olga Hirshhorn, born on April 26, 1920 and died October 3, 2015, Olga was an American collector of 19th and 20th century art and supporter of art museums.

Olga Zatorsky was born on April 26, 1920 in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Her parents were immigrants from the Ukraine.

Olga graduated from Greenwich High School in 1939 and married her English teacher, John Cunningham.

They had three sons. In 1964 she divorced Cunningham and married Joseph H. Hirshhorn, who died in 1981.

Her first purchase was a painting by Josef Albers.

Over time Olga collected works by Willem de Kooning, Henry Moore and Man Ray as well as works from Asia and Africa.

In 1995 she donated over 600 works to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC., estimated at the time to be worth about 10 million dollars, which surprised the art world since it had been expected that her art would go to the Hirshhorn Museum.

Olga served on the boards of the Hirshhorn Museum as well as the Corcoran Gallery.

One of Hirshhorn’s most noted collections was called “The Mouse House”, a collection of 197 small-art objects.

Among the objects in the collection are six Picassos, six de Koonings, seven Alexander Calder pieces, four pieces by Man Ray and individual paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe and Salvador Dali.

The Frick Collection contains various archives relating to Olga as well as an oral history completed in 1988.

In 2012 Olga was awarded the Patron Award by the International Sculpture Center.

Olga Zatorsky Hirshhorn passed away on October 3, 2015 at age 95.