Brigitte Freybe: A Life of Art

Lisa Baldissera, with Helga Pakasaar

With her passion for art and her curiosity and genuine interest in the world around her, Brigitte Freybe helped to shape the evolution of the arts ecology in our city. Trained in graphic design in Basel, Switzerland, and Munich, Germany, Brigitte’s early work was as a graphic designer in Vancouver and Montreal. Later she volunteered as a docent with the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Along with her husband Henning, Brigitte’s engagement and interest in art grew as the Freybes began acquiring challenging and innovative works that exemplified the burgeoning international art scene. Brigitte described her approach to collecting as intuitive. The collection started in 1972 with the acquisition of an untitled work by Peter Alexander, and later Piasky III, a low-relief geometric abstraction by the American artist Frank Stella. When asked what drew her to the work, Brigitte said that words failed the occasion: “It’s a question you could ask me about every piece . . . I can’t answer that. It’s instantly that I find fascination with something. I don’t want to say we collect art to live with it—which we do. I don’t know why a piece of art speaks to me. It does.”

The collection grew from this start, as more work was acquired through Ace Gallery. Later their acquisitions were informed by visits to art fairs in Basel, Berlin, New York, and Los Angeles. Among many highlights in their collection are works by European artists such as Georg Baselitz, Christian Boltanski, Daniel Buren, Tacita Dean, Thomas Ruff, and Wolfgang Tillmans; American artists Mary Corse, Gordon Matta-Clark, Julie Mehretu, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella; and other international, contemporary artists such as Nairy Baghramian, Alfredo Jaar, William Kentridge, and Lee Ufan. From the West Coast, works by leading Canadian artists Beau Dick, Stan Douglas, Rodney Graham, Brian Jungen, Jerry Pethick, Ian Wallace, and Jeff Wall were included, along with California artists from the Light and Space movement, such as Peter Alexander and John McCracken. Henning noted that throughout their collecting journey, “I have an amazing amount of faith in Brigitte’s judgment… She has a much better eye, an eye that is willing to live with the unusual, to live with something that is different,” while Brigitte once told Canadian Art magazine, “We never wanted to sell anything, we take it as an honour to be living with art.”

As their collection developed, it was clear to Brigitte, Henning, and fellow collectors in Vancouver that there was a need for a more robust conversation on contemporary art in the city, leading to their cofounding of Contemporary Art Society Vancouver (CASV) in 1977. The group began inviting international figures to the city, or engaging them in dialogue, to create a rich discursive space for the work that was beginning to exemplify artistic practice: conceptual, challenging, and testing the waters of the West Coast’s affinity for modernism. This was the start of their engagement with artists and art institutions that has extended over almost five decades. Among the luminaries they were involved with, or that their efforts brought to the city, were curators and critics invited to be part of their international exchanges, including Germano Celant, Massimiliano Gioni, Jens Hoffmann, Walter Hopps, Marcia Tucker, Suzi Gablik, Donald Kuspit, Werner Schmalenbach, and Barry Schwabsky, while Canadian guests included John Scott, Ron Martin, Tim Whiten, Olga Korper.

Brigitte’s commitment was distinguished by a profound respect for art’s capacity to move and shape our understanding, noting how their own collecting was guided by art that “we really love… Mainly it touches our hearts before anything else.” Inspired by this feeling, Brigitte and Henning opened Griffin Art Projects to the public in 2015, with a vision to share contemporary art collections with the public by creating a free and accessible space for all, a mission it has continued for just over a decade. At the time of Griffin’s inception, Henning said, “To be able to give back to the community is the main part of the idea of opening the gallery.”

Brigitte served on the boards of the Vancouver Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Canada, including their acquisitions committees, enriching Vancouver’s cultural landscape and promoting artistic dialogue. This continued in 2025, when the Freybes made the most significant donation of contemporary international artworks to the Vancouver Art Gallery in the organization’s history, ensuring that a substantial portion of their carefully curated collection would remain accessible. Of the donation, Brigitte stated, “I wanted the pieces to be together. To be a family of art.”

Independent curator and former Chief Curator of The Polygon Gallery, Helga Pakasaar collaborated with Brigitte and Henning, both in helping to install configurations at home as new works arrived and as Griffin’s curator of the inaugural shows, WOOSH (2015) and Surrogates (2016). Pakasaar notes: “When I worked on the inaugural Griffin exhibition, Brigitte welcomed giving the treasures in her home a public life with a generous spirit of trust, curious about what I wanted to show and how the display would be put together. Passionately sharing her enthusiasms, she wanted to talk about art and artists beyond biography and formal issues, to reflect on new insights, to consider what an artist might do next. Brigitte’s spirited generosity and loyal support of artists across generations included her delight in new discoveries. Brigitte had discerning curatorial eyes, reflected in her knack for staging eclectic artworks into provocative dialogues with one another. When assisting with installations in her home, I had the sense that their artworks were considered lifelong friends essential to everyday life. The art-filled spaces personalized with furniture brought Brigitte enduring pleasures, like reading a history book surrounded by luminous artworks. Her rare passion for art was truly inspirational.”

As humble as she was kind, pragmatic, and knowledgeable, Brigitte exemplified a life of art. Her leadership and insight are witnessed in how she continually emanated respect, and oftentimes awe, for artists and their creations. In her generous and authentic way, Brigitte exemplified what it means to be a true mentor and leader. We join the Canadian art community in mourning Brigitte’s loss and celebrating her tremendous impact on the artistic landscape, people, institutions, and artists she so dearly loved and supported.