Fondation Beyeler Founder Ernst Beyeler Dies at 88 in Basel
GENEVA (AP).- Ernst Beyeler, whose early
eye for undervalued Picassos and Impressionists helped him assemble one of
Europe’s most famous art collections, has died, his Beyeler Foundation said
Friday. He was 88. Beyeler died Thursday evening at his home near Basel, said
the museum, which he created 13 years ago out of his sprawling gallery of
masterpieces. Beyeler, the son of a Swiss railway employee, became a
widely respected art patron after World War II by acquiring hundreds of works by
Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet, Henri Matisse and others. He
presented them to the public in his Basel gallery and later in the foundation he
founded near the German border. Funeral arrangements were not immediately known.
