Art World
Hirshhorn Founder’s DC Home Hits Market for $6 Million
Joseph Hirshhorn started his collection with two $75 Dürer prints.
Brian Boucher
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The house that was once home to the storied art collection of financier and museum founder Joseph H. Hirshhorn is now on the market in Washington, DC, for $6.25 million.
In 1969, Hirshhorn purchased the house for $130,000.
2241 Bancroft Place NW. Courtesy TTR Sotheby’s International Realty.
Five years later, he made a gift to the nation of almost 6,000 works of art, forming the founding gift of that city’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Works currently on view in the collection include paintings by Helen Frankenthaler, busts by Alberto Giacometti, and a formidable sculpture by Joan Miró. In February, the museum will host the retrospective “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors,” which will include six of the famous Japanese artist’s mirror rooms, among other works.
Hirshhorn got his start in business as a newsboy when he left school at the age of 13, and he became a stockbroker at the tender age of 16, according to a bio on the museum’s website. He established an art collection two years later with the purchase of two etchings by German artist Albrecht Dürer, for which he paid $75 each ($1,414 in today’s dollars).
He would go on to amass a collection featuring works by some of the leading artists of his day, such as Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, Edward Hopper, and Willem de Kooning.
2241 Bancroft Place NW. Courtesy TTR Sotheby’s International Realty.
The 8,000-square-foot, single-family residence, at 2241 Bancroft Place NW, in the Kalorama neighborhood, offers 13-foot-high ceilings, eight bedrooms, four fireplaces, four baths and three half baths.
Since he’s rumored to be headed to DC for a new job as head of the National Endowment for the Arts, perhaps actor/art collector Sylvester Stallone would consider the affordable abode, which, the listing points out, “offers the new owners a great home for family or diplomatic use.”
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