The Victoria Schonfeld Collection

ABOUT VICTORIA

Victoria Schonfeld (1950-2019) was a prominent New York lawyer, collector, and philanthropist whose discerning eye was matched only by the fierceness of devotion to her family and friends. From the time she began collecting ceramics in the 1990s, Schonfeld developed lasting friendships with the artists who caught her eye. Schonfeld was particularly devoted to championing female artists, including Betty Woodman, Kathy Butterly, Alison Britton, Toshiko Takaezu and Beatrice Wood, as well as younger artists Kate Malone, Claire Curneen, Chris Antemann, Mara Superior, Lauren Mabry and Rain Harris. Her taste encompassed everything from classical beauty to pointedly political works, all linked by her boundless curiosity.

Vicki and I met more than 30 years ago when she was just starting her life in collecting. Based in New York, her focus on narrative works and work by women artists guided her collection. In turn, her collection helped shape her life until her unfortunate passing in 2019. Alex Renee, one of our collection specialists, carefully documented the Schonfeld Collection, working closely with her family and curator Garth Johnson to bring this collection to the Everson Museum of Art where it was on view in 2021-2022. With exhibitions such as this, collectors like Vicki are able to continue their important contributions to the field and their positive impacts on the working lives of artists.

One of Ferrin Contemporary’s primary roles is partnering with collectors, estates, and artist’s archives to offer selected masterworks as loans and gifts to museums and for private sale. These collections have been established across several decades by visionary private collectors and supplemented by the artist’s own archives. The collections typically feature remarkable works with important exhibition and publication histories. These works carry with them stories from the studio that add to the history of our field and trace the web of social relationships between artists, collectors, and art professionals. In this, we take great care to develop and provide the publication and exhibition histories that help place these highly valued ceramic masterworks in public and private collections throughout the world. The act of collecting brings together the artists and collectors. When on view in museums, these collections create opportunities that bring us together once again as in the aptly titled Mutual Affection.

– Leslie Ferrin, Ferrin Contemporary

View Selections Gifted to Everson Museum in Mutual Affection