Heidi Horton Collection

The Heidi Horton Collection is the legacy of the late Heidi Goëss-Horton, a Viennese art collector and billionaire. Together with her first husband, Helmut Horten, she embarked on a journey during the 1970s, laying the foundation for an extensive art collection that now spans several hundred paintings, sculptures, and graphic works. Her decision to intensify collecting in the mid-1990s proved fortuitous, coinciding with a recovering art market. A collector driven by passion, Goëss-Horten immersed herself in the works, resisting transient trends and establishing a personal relationship with each piece.

In 2018, Horten exhibited part of her collection publicly for the first time at Vienna’s Leopold Musuem. Dr. Agnes Husslein-Arco – then advisor to Horton and current director of the Collection – recalled how the overwhelming public interest in her collection led Horton to announce plans to build a private museum to have her collection accessible on a more permanent basis. The museum opened to the public in in June 2022, just a few days before Horton would pass away.

Dr. Husslein-Arco welcomed us, sharing personal stories of her time with Horton and painting the picture of a self-aware and bold collector, before chief curator Dr. Rolf Johannsen took us through a private visit of the Collection. It was a delight.