New-York Historical Society Gifted Big Apple-Themed Art Collection

Real-estate executive Elie Hirschfeld calls the works ‘more than just art,’ including pieces from David Hockney, Georgia O’Keeffe and Jacob Lawrence

Almost four decades ago, New York City real-estate executive Elie Hirschfeld came across a painting that spoke to him, a work by Thomas Hart Benton that depicted a street scene in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village neighborhood.

Mr. Hirschfeld acquired the piece, and that sparked what became a continuing obsession—to collect art that tells the story of New York, past and present, in all its vibrant and quirky glory.

Now, Mr. Hirschfeld and his wife, Sarah Hirschfeld, are donating the 130-piece collection to the New-York Historical Society, saying it is time to share it with the city as a whole.

Mr. Hirschfeld, who is president of Hirschfeld Properties, one of the city’s more prominent real- estate firms, said he chose to make the gift to the society rather than to an art museum because it seemed the perfect fit.

“I think of my collection as more than just art. It’s really the history of New York,” he said.

The collection does, however, have works by several well-known artists, such as David Hockney, Marc Chagall, Edward Hopper, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol and Georgia O’Keeffe.

The pieces come from different eras, spanning the 19th to the 21st centuries, and go beyond paintings to include sculpture and works on paper.

The society, founded in 1804 and located on the Upper West Side, plans to introduce the “Scenes of New York City” collection, as it is called, with a major exhibition in the fall of 2021, officials with the institution said. After that, the society will feature works from the collection on a rotating basis in a permanent dedicated space.

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