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Colorado collectors Susan and Larry Marx began buying art in the 1960s because they “wanted to live with beautiful things,” they told ARTnews. Larry, who was formerly a developer and has since retired, said that the couple loves “all of ‘[their] children’ equally,” referring to their extensive collection of postwar and contemporary art and works on paper. The two have promised to give more than 150 pieces—paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by 109 different artists—to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Among the artists represented in this major gift are Willem de Kooning, Yayoi Kusama, Ad Reinhardt, and Mira Schendel. In an essay that accompanied the Hammer’s 2012 show of their gifts titled “Intimate Intensity,” Larry told curator Douglas Fogle, “Art is about where it takes me.”

Previously the couple had shown a selection of their collection at the Aspen Art Museum, in the 2002 show titled “From Pollock to Marden: Post-War Works on Paper from the Collection of Susan and Larry Marx.” It featured several dozen works by artists like Jackson Pollock, Brice Marden, Richard Diebenkorn, Susan Rothenberg, Franz Kline, Claes Oldenburg, and Ed Ruscha. “This is a show you could put up in any museum in the world,” Dean Sobel, the interim director of the Aspen Art Museum, told the Aspen Times. “The overall importance of the show is that it’s the most influential artists, and the work is fantastic. This is primo stuff.” Speaking of their adopted hometown, Susan told the paper, “Aspen has been a remarkable introduction and entrée into meeting so many other art collectors.”