Susan and Michael Hort are among New York’s most prolific collectors of emerging art. Over the decades, they’ve taken risks on countless artists, Marlene Dumas and Cindy Sherman among them. In the New York art world, the couple is synonymous with their Tribeca home, filled with wall-to-wall art by blue-chip names and little-known artists alike.
But before the Horts were fixtures of the city’s gallery circuit, they were the parents of an art-loving daughter, Rema Hort Mann. On Saturdays, Rema would regularly pull her parents around the city to exhibitions, an entourage of young artist friends in tow. “I remember saying to Michael, ‘Do you think we could have dinner alone on a Saturday night without Rema and her five friends?’” Susan Hort said with a laugh during a recent conversation.
Rema died of stomach cancer in 1995 at 30. In the wake of her death, her parents resolved to honor her life and founded the Rema Hort Mann Fund, a nonprofit organization with a two-pronged mission of supporting both cancer patients and the emerging artists Rema so championed in life. “It was very important that Rema’s name stay alive,” Susan said, “and let something good come out of her death.”
The fund quickly became a family affair. Their son Peter, one of the couple’s three surviving children, had become closely involved with the fund’s quality-of-life grants for cancer patients. Tragically, Peter, who was a lawyer and judge, died suddenly in 2022, at 51, of bile duct cancer. His wife, Jamie Cohen, stepped into his role.
This year, the Rema Hort Mann Fund is marking its 30th anniversary with a gala on October 28, 2026. In this milestone year, the Horts have added a new, third grant to the fund: the Artists Living with Cancer Grant. The grant, which merges the fund’s two longstanding missions into one, was inspired by this year’s gala honoree, celebrated contemporary artist Jacolby Satterwhite, who has lived with cancer and its complications since he was 11 years old. The artist is the recipient of inaugural Artists Living with Cancer Grant for $25,000, jointly funded by Rema Hort Mann Fund and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
A memory-fueled mission
The Rema Hort Mann Fund has centered its mission around two grants, the Peter Hort Quality of Life Grant and the Emerging Artist Grant.
The Quality of Life Grant supports people in cancer treatment, covering things like childcare, phone bills, travel, and housing. Its primary mission is to ensure that cancer patients are not alone during treatments and to strengthen their emotional support networks and financial resources.
The inspiration for this grant came from a friend of Rema’s who was battling brain cancer. The friend met the Horts for dinner and told them she was going to stop treatment.
“Her boyfriend had just left her. Her parents lived in the Northwest. She wanted one last good summer,” recalled Susan. “That’s where the idea for the grants came in. Maybe if her parents had been able to visit her and she had this connection, she would have fought. It’s very hard to fight when you’re alone.”
The grant, which has long been overseen by family friend and board member Dr. David Biro, offers unrestricted grants of up to $10,000 and has supported over 2,400 people battling cancer (recipients must be nominated by their hospital social worker). For this grant, it’s been important to the family for the fund to be fast-acting and responsive to immediate needs. “So people don’t have to wait,” said Susan.
The fund’s other grant, the Emerging Artist Grant, offers no-strings grants to burgeoning talents. Each year, over 100 artists receive a nomination-only invitation from dozens of accomplished arts professionals. Following a competitive selection process, an independent jury awards 10 recipients $12,500 each. One artist receives an additional $2,500 in honor of Peter Hort. Last year’s recipients include Taína Cruz, Daniel Castro, and Aiza Ahmed, among others.
For Susan and Michael Hort, the Emerging Artist Grants pay the greatest homage to Rema’s irrepressible passion for artists and her bohemian worldview.
“She was amazing,” said Michael simply. “She loved artists. She was always hanging out with them. She was also brilliant,” added Susan. Nicole Eisenman, for instance, attended Rema’s wedding to her husband Billy Mann, taking photographs of the couple as a gift.
Rema was a high-powered professional. She worked at a major accounting firm as a management consultant, then earned her master’s at The Wharton School—but she always maintained an independent streak.
“She was definitely more of a hippie than they wanted,” Susan recalled of Rema’s corporate job. “At one point they said to her, ‘If you want to be taken seriously as a woman, you have to cut your hair.’ She came to me and said, ‘What do I do?’ I said, ‘You want to cut your hair?’ So she left, and she went and worked for HBO in its infancy.”
These memories have fueled the couple’s drive to keep the fund a strong presence over the decades, sustaining it through auctions, year-end donations, and personal money during leaner years. “When we didn’t have quite enough money, my husband and I put in money to make sure the grants would be paid,” Susan noted.
Meeting the moment
This year’s new grant, the Artists Living with Cancer grant, merges the two longstanding pillars of the Rema Hort Mann Fund. The goal is to support artists so they can continue their practice while seeking treatment. The grant provides a one-time grant for selected visual artists suffering with cancer and living in the New York metropolitan area.
As with much of the Horts’ charitable work, the inspiration came through personal connection.
Susan had met Satterwhite years ago, at one of her own birthday parties, where he performed. “He had so much fun, he refused to charge me,” she recalled.
Satterwhite is best known for sprawling, maximalist video and performance works that blend 3D animation, personal family ephemera, and live movement. His practice has been shown at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney, and he was named to The Artsy Vanguard in 2019.
Soon after the birthday party, Carole Server, a board member of the fund, who knew Satterwhite personally, told Susan Hort about the artist’s battle with cancer and envisioned a way for the fund to support artists in similar positions.
“When she came to me, and I heard it, I said, ‘That’s perfect,’” Susan said. The grant “is more needed now than there ever was.”
The Horts have a history of supporting art world figures amid health struggles, particularly those who are uninsured. When their friend, the iconic New York dealer Pat Hearn, was diagnosed with liver cancer in 1997, she was denied treatment coverage. The Horts participated in the memorable “Emergency Sale” of artworks donated by artist friends, dealers, and collectors alike. In the New York Times, critic Roberta Smith detailed Hearn’s insurance struggles and the sale, an article that led her insurer, Oxford, to reconsider the claims. Sadly, Hearn passed away in 2000, at the age of 45.
The Horts believe artists’ need for health care support has only grown in the years since. “It’s more needed now than it ever was,” said Michael. “Health care is much more expensive and not only that, artists aren’t making as much.”
Since the grant was announced, the couple has heard from countless artists. “Everybody’s struggling right now. I have artists who are very successful and say to me, ‘This is the first time this show didn’t sell out,’” said Susan. “So if the very successful artists are having that experience, you can imagine what’s happening to the younger, not-quite-as-established artists.”
“I hope this grant creates a shift in the art world,” Satterwhite told the Art Newspaper earlier this year. “The art world can be very fickle and fleeting, but artists give their whole lives to their work. When serious illness interrupts that, there should be more space for care, dignity, and support."
An art world legacy and its future
Room for Demoiselle Two, 2019-2025
Jacolby Satterwhite
Kadel Willborn
Today, Susan and Michael’s art collection exceeds 5,000 works, spread across their Tribeca triplex and their New Jersey home.
For decades, the couple has collected by a mantra of buying early and buying deep. They were collectors of blue-chip artists like Peter Doig long before the market caught on. They hold sometimes over a dozen works by a single artist. “If I have one piece by an artist, I’m not really collecting that artist,” Susan said of their approach.
Now the couple is focusing on a new horizon—the future of the collection and the fund. “We realized we're getting older,” Susan said. The couple has begun handing day-to-day control to a new executive director, Elysia Borowy. Meanwhile, their daughter now sits on the board, and a growing bench of grandchildren have expressed interest in collecting art.
The next chapter of the collection is already under construction. The Horts are opening a pavilion with the nonprofit arts space Art Omi in upstate New York in 2027. The family is committing to two rotating shows a year, in a space that Art Omi will fund and staff, sparing their children the financial costs of a private museum.
In a full-circle moment, many of the artists the Horts collected in the early years of their careers are now donating work to this year’s gala benefit. Among them are Cristina BanBan, discovered in a small London gallery years before her market took off, Nicole Eisenman, whom the Horts began collecting in 1992, and Marlene Dumas.
Every dollar raised by the gala will go directly to supporting artists and patients. The board covers the fund’s operating costs out of pocket. For the Horts, the continuation of the fund for another 30 years is self-evident in its purpose. “We see it continuing, because there’s still a need,” said Susan.
from Artsy News https://ift.tt/W8rBKtU
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