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ranchandcoast.com 88 APRIL 2025 RANCH & COAST MAGAZINE detour culture MATTHEW AND IRIS STRAUSS: PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART SAN DIEGO IN LA JOLLA An Artful Life A tribute to Matthew C. Strauss at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla I majored in art and always admired Helen Frankenthaler," says Iris Strauss, speaking of the first significant painting she bought with her late husband Matthew, who passed away last year at the age of 91. In the years since the acquisition of that first work four decades ago, Iris and Matthew assembled one of the world's finest private contemporary art collections including more than 300 works, 22 of which are now on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla. A San Diego native, Matthew founded the commercial real estate firm M.C. Strauss and Company in 1960, and the couple raised a family in Del Cerro before moving to Rancho Santa Fe in the 1980s. " e new home was much bigger, with many empty walls," Iris says, explaining their sudden need for fine art. It was shortly thereafter when the Strausses joined the Museum of Contemporary Art, traveling to art shows with Hugh Davies, the museum director at the time, as well as other collectors. On their first visit to Europe, they went to Documenta, an exhibition of contemporary art that takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany, where they purchased two paintings by the then relatively unknown artist Gerhard Richter. Matthew, who was still collecting at the time of his death, was a newcomer to the art world back then, but he immediately recognized that if he was going to be a collector, he wanted to acquire works created in his lifetime. Most of the collection dates from the 1970s to the present, and Richter is far from the only artist whose work the Strausses bought before the artist reached their peak of fame. Ultimately, their collection grew so large that in 1999 they purchased the 6,000-square-foot home next-door to create a gallery for their work. Realizing they were merely custodians of the art, they opened the collection to the public in 2008, hosting many tours for local art institutions, museums, colleges, and universities. Matthew took tremendous pride in leading the tours himself, his greatest pleasure being that moment when visitors put away their phones and really started to look at the art and ask questions. As the Strauss collection grew in scale and importance, their support of the arts in San Diego and MCASD also grew. Iris served on the San Diego Arts Commission, and Matthew held leadership positions at MCASD for more than three decades, including serving as president from 2013 to 2016, helping initiate the recent expansion that enables the museum to display its own remarkable collection along with the many traveling exhibits it hosts. " e Strausses are intricately linked with the museum's history and holdings, but the collections are also complementary," says Kathryn Kanjo, MCASD's current director and CEO. As with most museums, MCASD receives the majority of its works through gifts, BY BILL ABRAMS Matthew and Iris Strauss in 2015