Artur Walther spent 20 years on Wall Street. But he never had plans to retire. Instead, he has amassed the world’s largest privately held collection of African photography. He is an exhibitor and publisher, too.
ICP presents former ICP Trustee Artur Walther and The Walther Collection with this year’s Trustee Award. Walther’s involvement as a Trustee, student, and long-time supporter of ICP inspired him to begin what has now become The Walther Collection in Ulm, Germany, considered to be one of the most significant private collections of contemporary Asian and African photography. ICP are thrilled to recognize his work in helping to shape ICP’s programs, as well as his remarkable achievements with The Walther Collection.
Artur Walther is one of the leading collectors of photography in the world today. For nearly twenty years, The Walther Collection has been devoted to supporting global photography through exhibitions and scholarship. The collection features work by, among otheres, Ai Weiwei, Richard Avedon, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Samuel Fosso, David Goldblatt, Seydou Keïta, Santu Mofokeng, Zanele Muholi, J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere, Jo Ractliffe, August Sander, Stephen Shore, Malick Sidibé, Song Dong, Mikhael Subotzky, Guy Tillim, Wang Qingsong, Zhang Dali, and Zhang Huan.
Walther began collecting photography in the late 1990s, initially focusing on German modernist photography before expanding his collection to encompass contemporary photography and video. In 2010, he inaugurated The Walther Collection, a museum complex in Neu-Ulm, Germany. Dedicated to promoting new scholarship about photography, The Walther Collection is active in curatorial research, in-depth exhibitions, and comprehensive publications. Exhibitions from the collection have been presented throughout Europe, and in 2011, it extended its mission to the U.S. with the opening of The Walther Collection Project Space in New York.
Walther was born in Ulm, Germany, earned his MBA from Harvard Business School, and was later a partner at Goldman Sachs. He currently serves on a number of committees at cultural and educational institutions in New York. He was a trustee at the International Center of Photography from 1987 to 2013.
At ICP, he chaired the Exhibitions Committee for ten years and spearheaded the launch of the ICP Triennial of Video and Photography in 2003.
