Collectors: Ann Ziff loves a good Aria. And Eskimo goggles

THE NEW YORK TIMES
Show Us Your Walls
By Robin Pogrebin

Ann Ziff, with art from the collection she amassed with her husband. From left, an African Suku figure; on the wall, two panels from second-century China depicting musicians; and a grouping of Eskimo snow goggles estimated to be between 1,700 and 2,000 years old.Credit: Alice Gao for The New York Times

Ann Ziff is typically associated with the Metropolitan Opera, in no small part because she is its chairwoman and gave the organization a whopping $30 million in 2010, then the largest single gift from an individual in the opera’s history. Ms. Ziff also serves on the boards of Lincoln Center and the Los Angeles Opera. But Ms. Ziff — who has her own jewelry label, Tamsen Z — also collected pre-Columbian, African and Oceanic art beginning in the 1980s with her husband, William B. Ziff Jr., a publishing executive. (Mr. Ziff died in 2006.) The Ziff collection — which amounted to some 8,000 pieces at its peak and also includes Tiffany lamps and stemware as well as Art Deco, Art Nouveau and Chinese furniture — was initially fueled by the need to fill the house the couple were building in upstate New York (as well as their homes in Aspen, Florida and Manhattan). [More]