Photo by Linda Farwell

When Susan and Michael Hort’s daughter Rema died of cancer 31 years ago, they knew something good had to come out of her death. So in 1996, coinciding with a move to Tribeca, they started a fund in her name that would combine their love and their loss: a support system for both emerging artists and individuals battling cancer.

The Rema Hort Mann Fund has a dual mission: it gives grants to young artists who have not yet had a one-person show at a for-profit gallery. And it gives quality of life grants to cancer patients to help them build a reliable network of care. Their sons helped run it from the beginning, but then their youngest, Tribecan Peter Hort, himself a collector, died of a 9/11-related cancer in 2022. That second tragedy only underscored their commitment to both causes.

Rema and Susan Hort, 1991

Their annual gala is coming up on October 28 at Tribeca Rooftop on Desbrosses with a live and online auction of exceptional contemporary works by established and emerging artists. (They also open up their triplex home on Hudson once a year for an art sale. See those photos below.)

For 15 years, Susan was a partner at Jack Tilton Gallery (before that she was a stay-at-home mother; Michael’s work was at his family’s printing firm Earth Enterprise, founded in 1915) and that was the launching pad for the couple’s collecting career. They started in 1985, and from the beginning knew they wanted to focus on young artists. Rema, then in her young 20s, would come with them to visit studios and MFA shows around the city every Saturday.

Photo by Annie Schlechter

“We like to meet the artist, so we don’t collect dead artists,” Susan said. “When I buy someone early in their career, it can really make a difference. Not only does it help them financially, but the fact that someone is interested in their work gives their career a real boost.”

They have been influential in the development of dozens of artists who are now well known, even to the casual museum-goer: Cindy Sherman, Marlene Dumas, Kehinde Wiley, Sanford Biggers, Dana Schutz, Mickalene Thomas; the list goes on. John Currin, who is now represented by Gagosian, told Susan that the check he got from them at the start of his career was his most important, “because it proved to his mother that he could be an artist,” Susan said.

Photo by Annie Schlechter

Now with the fund starting its fourth decade, Susan and Michael are thinking about its legacy. They have recruited their family to serve as the next generation of the board — Tribecan Jamie Hort is one of its most active members — and they are expanding its reach. The latest program will provide direct financial support to visual artists in the New York Metropolitan area who are undergoing active cancer treatment. Everyone, Susan said, needs a support system.

“There was always someone with Peter in the hospital — Jamie was there, or I was there, just about every minute,” Susan said. “And Peter said then, ‘everyone who has cancer needs a guardian angel.’ We want to be that angel.”

Photos by Annie Schlechter