The Collector: Marcia & Frederick R. Weisman

Authors:
Tobias Czudej
Susan McDonough

Authors: Tobias Czudej, Susan McDonough

05.05.2025

The late Frederick R. Weisman made his fortune developing Hunt foods and acting as a distributor for Toyota when it was still a little-known Japanese auto company. He and his first wife, Marcia, began collecting art in the 1950s. Initially, he pursued European modernists—his first major purchase was Jean Arp's "Self-Absorbed." ("We bought it at a Parke Bernet auction for $6,500," he recalled in a 1985 interview. "That was a lot of money then.") Soon, Weisman was avidly collecting post war artists like Franz Kline, Clyfford Still, and Mark Rothko.

In 1982, Weisman purchased a Spanish Colonial in Los Angeles' Holmby Hills neighborhood to display a slice of his eclectic personal collection. Now known as the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, the villa embodies the late businessman's joyful, intuitive approach to collecting. "If something turns me on, I buy it," he once said. The home is filled with lifelike figurative works by John De Andrea and Duane Hanson. "This is a big house," he once said of his plastic companions. "I'm here alone and I like having people around." In 1991, the Weismans added a contemporary annex, designed by Franklin D.Israel, to accommodate larger-scale works by Donald Judd, Claes Oldenburg, and Morris Louis.

Image: Every room in Weisman’s home is covered in art. This one features James Rosenquist’s “Time Flowers,” 1973; John De Andrea’s “Mona,” 1984; Laura Grisi’s “Apollinaire’s Secret,” 1985; and Max Ernst’s “Lit-cage et son paravent” (“Folding Bed and Its Screen”), 1974-75.

05.05.2025