The Beverly Grossman Collection is a testament to a lifetime of curiosity, discovery and an ever-expanding engagement with art. Built over more than six decades, the collection brings together Modern and Contemporary art, prints and photography, and jewelry with remarkable breadth. From Andy Warhol, Donald Judd and Helen Frankenthaler to Robert Indiana and Tom Wesselmann, the artists represented reflect a collector whose eye was shaped by sustained looking, close friendships with artists and dealers, and a life of extensive travel. Rather than adhering to any single movement, period or medium, Beverly followed her interests wherever they led, building a collection that evolved continually alongside her own understanding of art.

Born in 1933 and raised as one of nine children on a farm in southeastern Minnesota, Beverly moved to Minneapolis at seventeen. Her introduction to collecting came unexpectedly when a visiting friend, Leah Louise Klein, surveyed her apartment and declared, “Your walls are bare! You need some art!” Taking the advice to heart, Beverly purchased a painting of a mother and child, the first acquisition in what would become a lifelong pursuit.

In the 1960s, Beverly became immersed in Minneapolis’s flourishing contemporary art scene, forming lasting friendships with two of its most influential dealers, Gordon Locksley and Felice Wender. Locksley, whom she first knew as her hairdresser while he was studying art, became an important champion of Pop Art and Minimalism, introducing Beverly to the work of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselmann and Donald Judd. Among her acquisitions through Locksley was Judd’s monumental Untitled wall progression, a defining work in her collection. Equally influential was Wender, whose Gallery 12 at Dayton’s introduced Minneapolis audiences to some of the most innovative artists of the period. Beverly accompanied Wender on trips to Paris and developed personal friendships with Robert Indiana, Wesselmann and Lichtenstein, acquiring works by each as their careers were taking shape.

Among these relationships, Beverly’s friendship with Andy Warhol held particular significance. Over the years, she assembled an exceptional group of his works, including a vibrant cerulean 24-by-24-inch Flowers painting and complete sets of his celebrated Endangered Species, Cowboys and Indians and Ads portfolios. In 1982, Warhol turned his attention to Beverly herself, creating six portraits commissioned by the collector following a Polaroid sitting with the artist. Displayed together in her home, these deeply personal works reflect a friendship that extended well beyond the gallery.

Beverly’s interests were further enriched by a life of extensive international travel. Her marriage in 1961 to Morris Chalfen, the impresario behind the internationally celebrated Holiday on Ice, took her across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, introducing her to a remarkable range of cultures, artistic traditions and experiences. An avid reader and enthusiastic museumgoer, she sought out art wherever she traveled, developing an appreciation that extended far beyond the Pop and Minimalist movements in which she first became immersed.

The collection Beverly assembled over the following decades reflects both the sophistication of her early education and the breadth of her evolving interests. While Donald Judd’s Untitled speaks to her enduring engagement with the defining figures of postwar art, Helen Frankenthaler’s Ebb Tide from 1988, a luminous composition of saturated green punctuated by streaks of white, reveals her sensitivity to color and abstraction. Her curiosity extended to subsequent generations, exemplified by Yoshitomo Nara’s 1995 sculpture Listen! Mimi-chan. Together with the works by Warhol, Indiana and Wesselmann that trace her formative years as a collector, these acquisitions reveal an eye that remained open to new discoveries, grounded in decades of knowledge and personal relationships but never confined by them.

Alongside her collecting, Beverly devoted decades to supporting the cultural institutions of her adopted hometown. An early member of the Walker Art Center’s Collectors’ Club, she became a dedicated patron of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, serving as trustee, board chair and ultimately life trustee. She also co-chaired the museum’s ambitious Bring Art to Life campaign, helping establish lasting support for its collections and programming. Together with Bud Grossman, whom she married in the early 1990s, her philanthropy extended to the Walker Art Center, Minnesota Orchestra, Minnesota Opera and Children’s Theatre Company. For Beverly, the pleasure of discovering art was matched by a profound commitment to making it accessible to others.

The Beverly Grossman Collection is a reflection of a life lived with uncommon curiosity, independence and enthusiasm. What began with a single painting acquired for an empty wall grew into a collection shaped by friendships, travel and a continual openness to discovery. The works now offered at Sotheby’s celebrate Beverly’s distinctive vision and the enduring place that art occupied in every chapter of her remarkable life.