Variation on a Chisel VI: Begging Poet

In medicine, art, philanthropy, and science, Dr. Herbert J. Kayden and his wife, Dr. Gabrielle Reem Kayden, embraced innovative thinking. Remembered by countless patients, students, and artists, they supported scientific research and artistic endeavors with equal curiosity and passion. Their collection of fine art, assembled with scholarship and connoisseurship over many decades, serves as a tangible expression of their commitment to learning and to their personal engagement with the art and ideas of their time.

Drs. Kayden and Reem’s passion for learning and discovery manifested itself in the world class art collection they built beginning in the 1950s. They sought a complement to the innovative thinking they pursued in science by collecting works of signature 20th Century modernists, both European and American, and contemporary artists.

In its richness and quality, their collection embodies two lives spent in the pursuit of knowledge and beauty. In their own words, “There is no question that if you’re taken up with art, the art world, and artists, that it can be enormously gratifying and satisfying; it’s an opportunity to step into a different world and if you are lucky enough to have the door open, you ought to seize it, and take it and enjoy it and revel in it.”