Portrait of generosity

Josie and Julian Robertson on their golf course at Cape Kidnappers. Photo / Hawkes Bay Today

On March 31, 2005, Auckland Art Gallery director Chris Saines' assistant came into his office and said a man called Julian Robertson was on the phone.

"He told them he hasn't got very long in town and he was hoping to pop in and see me - 'now would be good'," recalls Saines - a man with a crammed schedule - with a laugh. "I didn't know who he was. It didn't occur to me to Google him or anything like that. I thought this could be a person coming to see me about anything.

"He came in, he is a tall North Carolinean, a very imposing man. We started talking and he said, 'Look, Josie [his wife] and I have been coming to this gallery over a number of years. We are very frequent travellers to New Zealand.' He didn't tell me about his business interests and I had no picture of his length of connection with New Zealand.

"Then he said, 'I have always loved this gallery and I love what you are doing here. I am wondering, because we are developing a very modest collection, which we have been doing for a bit over a decade, if you'd be interested in borrowing any of that work - we've got artists like Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse..."'

Saines says his jaw did not drop, not one millimetre, at the offer. "You are never quite sure what it is that is going to hang off the end of that [artist's] name, so the name itself, while it has a huge cachet, you never quite know what the work is. We had little to work with other than the evident genuineness of our guest. But I was intrigued."

At that stage, Saines didn't know that the softly spoken American was a billionaire, once dubbed "The Wizard of Wall St". Aside from co-founding Tiger Management TLC, which became the world's largest hedge fund, Robertson and his wife were also formidable philanthropists, supporting a range of charities, education, art and conservation programmes.

New York-based, they have long had close links with New Zealand since he and Josie first lived here in 1978. Their son Alex was, as Robertson has put it, "made in New Zealand". As a "second career", the Robertsons spend three months of each year at either of the high-end lodges and golf courses he has developed at Kauri Cliffs in Northland and Cape Kidnappers in Hawke's Bay. Robertson also laid down further roots when he bought Te Awa Winery in Hawke's Bay and Dry River wines in the Wairarapa in 2002.

But for his brief visit to Saines that day in March, he was wearing his art collector hat, an interest he came to relatively late in life when he made his first purchase - a 1942 landscape by French artist Pierre Bonnard he bought "for a steal" 18 years ago. The collecting took off from there.

In Saines' office, Robertson briskly got down to business, inviting the gallery director to visit his apartment overlooking Central Park to see if there was anything he fancied as a loan. Saines was not in a position to travel. Instead, his friend, Auckland artist and arts writer James Ross, who was going to New York anyway, called the Robertsons and was invited over.

"When James visited, there was a function hosted by Julian so James was left to his own devices to look at the art," says Saines. "He took small-format photos of the works which within hours he sent back to us. Then my jaw dropped."

Saines knew straightaway that this was an extraordinary collection: "this was the point at which the gears began to change, seriously". A few months later, he travelled to New York "on the pretext I had a thousand good reasons to visit, with one unvarnished objective ... there was the possibility that Josie and Julian might consider giving us a gift. I read that as one work."

The relationship grew - and the Robertsons lent 14 paintings to Auckland Art Gallery for a show in the Lower Wellesley Wing in February 2006. At the time, Josie Robertson told me, "Chris had looked at the paintings in our home and asked me if we had ever given such a group out on loan at one time. The answer was no. We have loaned out one or two at a time but never like this. Now our apartment is naked."

Looking back, Saines still marvels at the couple's generosity. "They shipped the works out to us as part of their baggage on their private jet. For us, it was extraordinary to get the works and not pay what is usually very large sums to insure and transport the works."

The free show attracted 30,000 visitors during 30 days. "We had to hire extra security because of the volume of visitors," recalls Saines. "We got so much response - letters, comments, drawings by children. We gathered all that up and sent that to them and they were thrilled and moved. In March that year, they came back to the show and we had a discussion then in slightly broad terms about the possibility of some gift.

"In late 2007, Julian rang unexpectedly and said would I like to select 15 works from the collection as a promised gift to the gallery. We eventually put a very detailed proposal through and I wrote an argument about each work as to its relevance and context to the gallery collection."

Earlier that year, Saines and Gallery Foundation chairman John Judge had travelled to New York again, so Saines had had a chance to look "very closely" at the Robertsons' collection.

He knew by then what he wanted, works that would greatly enhance and complement the gallery's existing collection.

"I put the proposal to Julian and there was a good deal of discussion. A lot of very interesting discussion. We eventually, early this year, agreed on what the 15 works would be. On March 24, we executed a formal deed of agreement, of a promised gift, that the works would eventually be settled on the gallery."

The "promised gift" of what is now known as the Julian and Josie Robertson Collection "is not something that Aucklanders will get to see in its entirety immediately," says Saines. "The collection will remain with the Robertsons over their lifetimes."

But the couple do plan to bring two or three works to Auckland later in the year as a taster.

When the gallery refurbishment and expansion opens in April 2011, the Robertsons hope to bring all 15 works here for one month. By the time the collection finally settles in Auckland for good, they will literally be the jetsetters of the international art world.

Julian Robertson himself is a man of few words.

Exquisitely polite, he repeats a phrase we've heard a few times over the past couple of days: they are giving the Auckland Art Gallery $115 million worth of major modern European art because "we have a great affection for New Zealand".

"It has been a second home for us. All the New Zealanders were so appreciative of the art when we had it down there before, more appreciative than anything we have ever done."

Some more than others. When Close Up host Mark Sainsbury asked Prime Minister John Key to name his favourite artwork at the function announcing the largest act of philanthropy towards any gallery in Australasia, Key's answer was, inexplicably, Goldie.

Naturally, Robertson loves all of the works in the collection.

When pressed, he says he "particularly loves" the "little" 1938 Picasso of Dora Maar, Femme a la resille (Woman in a hairnet).

"We are really happy that those pictures are going to be in Auckland for the rest of their time on earth."