In the cold Madrid winter we lost Helga de Alvear, whose life revolved around love and generosity, words not much appreciated in these materialistic times. From her first collection of stones that she would pick up in the River Nahe as a child in Germany to her museum in Cáceres, Helga always liked to establish secret ties between nature and abstraction through the pieces she acquired. Since youth her life was bound to Jaime de Alvear, an architect connected to Spain’s Directed Settlements program with whom she fell in love when she came to study Spanish in Madrid, but it was Juana Mordó who brought her into the world of contemporary art. After the death of her mentor, Helga kept the latter’s gallery going until she decided to open her own: a visionary space where international artists have shown their most innovative and radical creations. Her fierce commitment to society also led her to selflessly set up the foundation and museum that bear her name, an adventure in the Extremadura region that she undertook with her dear friend José María Viñuela, and which has made Cáceres a cultural pole that exudes to the world her highly personal manner of collecting artworks. Helga will forevermore be remembered for her love of art, and for her generosity in sharing the collection which, piece after piece, with determination and care, she put together over the years.
