The Legacy of Aso Tavitian: the man who formed a museum-quality collection in just 15 years

Last week’s old masters sales in New York concluded with much-anticipated three-part single-owner sale at Sotheby’s, that of the collector-philanthropist Aso Tavitian, who died in 2020.

An Armenian Bulgarian by birth, Tavitian arrived in New York from Lebanon and worked as a taxi driver before talking his way into Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1965. Four years later, Tavitian and a cohort of fellow graduates founded the software company Syncsort as a rival to IBM. His success with the company allowed him to pursue his great passions of collecting and philanthropy, particularly in the fields of arts and education. Tavitian, who lived between residences in New York City and Stockbridge in Western Massachusetts, served on the board or committees of several museums, including the Metropolitan, Frick and Clark. All three benefitted from his generous bequests: the Met received Francesco Salviati’s Bindo Altoviti (c. 1545), while the Frick was given Moroni’s sublime Portrait of a woman (c. 1575).

The Clark, however, located near Tavitian’s home in the Berkshires, was the greatest beneficiary of his largess. The Aso Tavitian Foundation donated 331 artworks and over $45 million in endowment funds to support expansion and the establishment of a new curatorial role. It is among the largest gifts in the history of the museum, whose new wing, designed by Annabelle Selldorf, will be named the Aso O. Tavitian wing in his honour.

Tavitian’s donation – which is comprised of 132 paintings, 130 sculptures, 39 drawings, and 30 decorative objects – will completely transform the Clark collection, enhancing an already outstanding small museum by complementing its existing strengths. The Clark, whose collection ranges from the Renaissance through the 19th Century, has historically been stronger in examples from the later periods and in paintings more than in sculpture. Tavitian’s collection, meanwhile, which is strongest in the earlier periods and with an impressive distribution between painting and sculpture, will therefore fill in some important gaps and round out the scope of the museum’s holdings.

Among the numerous highlights from the Clark bequest are a superb Memling Portrait of a man in a black cap, acquired by Tavitian from Dickinson; a rare, late Madonna of the Fountain (c. 1440) by Jan van Eyck and his workshop, an exceptional and striking glazed terracotta relief Portrait of a youth (c. 1470-80) by Andrea della Robbia, Rubens’s Portrait of a young man (c. 1613-15) which dates from the artist’s second Antwerp period, and Bernini’s bronze Matilda of Canossa (c. 1630-39), a small-scale reduction of a marble version carved for the Countess’s tomb in St. Peter’s Basilica. These are joined by additional portraits by Parmigianino, Fragonard, David and others, landscapes by Robert and Vernet, and many more extremely fine sculptures. Funds from the bequest will endow a new curatorial position at the Clark: the Aso O Tavitian Curator of Early Modern European Painting and Sculpture.