Grant lost his father on Friday. He was a passionate man who never tread lightly, leaving his indelible footprints on the art world, his family and his beloved Santa Fe community.

SANFORD MICHAEL BESSER, 1936-2011: Collector gave artists 'permission to dare'

By Craig Smith | For The New Mexican

11/26/2011

Sanford "Sandy" Besser, who died at age 75 Friday at his Santa Fe home, was a man of first-rate parts.

Husband, father, grandfather. Navy veteran, investment banker, nonprofit volunteer and burr. Good friend, enthusiastic foe, community gadfly. And, of course, intensely perceptive and influential art collector.

There was only one small problem in keeping track of Besser. He wouldn't stay put. If you looked where he really belonged, at No. 1 on a list, you'd find that he had percolated right up over the top of the page, and stayed there.

"Sandy was a complicated guy and a collector of such stature," said Michael Bergt, one of the notable artists whose work Besser patronized over the years. "He had absolute confidence in his decisions. I don't think I've met but two or three other people like that in my career.

"The thing I admired most about him, he would go to a show and go right to the toughest work, the one most in your face, the one hardest to take. It would be the piece you knew was your best work, but that no one would ever want. And he would buy it."

Acclaimed blacksmith Tom Joyce, a close Besser friend and recipient of a 2003 MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, agreed.

"The art he collected of mine started out with the bulls I showed at the Barbara Okun Gallery in the early '90s. After that, every step I took, he was buying what other people didn't want to buy. At my EVO show, he bought two charred paper drawings, the first I'd ever done. No one else would."

Besser didn't buy because he was sorry for the artist, Joyce stressed. He bought because the difficult always attracted him. Perhaps because of his own busy and exuberant life, perhaps because he never hesitated to be difficult with other people or an organization when he thought it was deserved.

That included newspapers, editors and reporters, state government officials, nonprofit boards, gallery owners, and for an intense period of time, the Museum of New Mexico Foundation and the state's Department of Cultural Affairs. Besser's letters to the editor and thought pieces were seldom examples of overflowing cheer or kindness, but he never left one in doubt of his views.

Born in St. Louis in 1936, the son of Ida and Herbert Besser, Sandy moved with his family to Little Rock, Ark., when he was 8. A Vanderbilt University graduate on an ROTC scholarship, he was stationed at Treasure Island in San Francisco while in the Navy. He spent the majority of his professional career as an investment banker with the Little Rock firm of Stephen Inc.

His collecting delight — perhaps mania is a more accurate word — began early, with items ranging from swizzle sticks to postcards. Later, he and his wife of 36 years — Diane Pettit Besser, who died in 2001 — collected avidly but with keen eyes. Their collection was weirdly eclectic, huge, and it never stopped growing.

One artistic concept Besser especially doted on, Bergt said, was that of the vessel — from small-scale and famously wild teapots to massive ceramics and varied glass pieces. Other genres included 20th-century drawings, Indonesian and African tribal art, and Northern New Mexican carvings and straw appliqué.

Among the institutions the Bessers supported with pieces from their treasure cave were the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, Spanish Colonial Arts Society and the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe; Arizona State University Art Museum in Tempe; and the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock. In 2007, following on a large gift to the de Young Museum in San Francisco, Besser celebrated his 70th birthday there with a party among the Diane and Sandy Besser Collection.

"Sandy was the kind of collector that everyone in the field knew, but otherwise he was as quiet about it as he could be," Bergt recalled. "He also served on a lot of nonprofit board where he was not quiet."

"Sandy was interested in stretching the known and predictable," Joyce said. "He was interested in supporting an artist to the degree they were willing to jump the track for him — artists at a transitional stage in their careers.

"He gave you permission to dare."

Besser is survived by his sons and their spouses: Matthew Besser and Danielle Schneider of Los Angeles, Grant and Alexandra Besser of Boulder, Colo., and Kenneth and Virginia Besser of San Francisco; grandchildren Cole, Carson, Quinn and Natalie; his sister, Maxine Marshall of Scottsdale, Ariz.; and his beloved dog, Ruby.

A memorial service for family and friends will be held Wednesday at the Besser home. In lieu of flowers, donations are requested to Coming Home Connection,www.cominghomeconnection.org. Anyone interested in purchasing remaining art from the Besser collection should email mbesser@sbcglobal.net for information.