Alanna Heiss and David Teiger, Opening night, Kristin Baker, Surge and Shadow, Deitch Projects 18 Wooster Street, March 15, 2007, Photo credit: Kristy Leibowitz
Alanna Heiss and David Teiger at a 2007 Deitch Projects opening.
KRISTY LEIBOWITZ
David Teiger, a New Jersey management consultant who amassed a broad collection of modern, folk, and contemporary artwork, died on Sunday of natural causes following an illness at the age of 85. His personal assistant Cabrina Potence confirmed the news by phone, noting that working with Teiger was “an education every day.”
“I learned something from him every day about life, art, story telling, laughing,” she said. “All the things he was known for.”
Teiger served on the Committee on Drawings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and became an honorary trustee there in 2004. He supported exhibitions like “The Talent Show” at MoMA PS1, and established the Teiger Mentor in the Arts Program at Cornell University. He was a “benefactor” at the New Museum and on the board of overseers at the Hammer in Los Angeles. In addition to shows at PS1, he also supported at least one exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem. He makes a memorable appearance in Sarah Thornton’s 2007 book Seven Days in the Art World. “I’m just an ordinary rich person,” he told Thornton at the time. “These young billionaires with their private jets—they’re in a different league. My ‘new money’ is now ‘old money,’ which nowadays means ‘less money.'”