Preston Haskell, founder and chairman of the largest privately held construction company in Florida (named Haskell), is lending 27 abstract paintings from his personal art collection to the Princeton University Art Museum. (Haskell is an alum, class of 1960.) The exhibition, Rothko to Richter: Mark-Making in Abstract Painting from the Collection of Preston H. Haskell includes the works of some of the most important American and European artists of the mid-to-late twentieth century including Helen Frankenthaler, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter, and Mark Rothko.
Throughout his entire career, Haskell has advocated the design-build construction method, which favors design and construction services contracted by a single source, e.g. a contractor decides on design issues as well as issues of cost, profits, schedules, etc. Since the 1960s, Haskell has been instrumental in elevating the design-build system within the industry. (Until 1979, the American Institute of Architects prohibited members from providing construction services.) By 2010, about 40 percent of non-residential construction projects used the design-build project delivery method.
Gerhard Richter, Untitled, 1986. Acrylic on canvas. Collection of Preston H. Haskell, Class of 1960. © 2014 Gerhard Richter / photo Douglas J. Eng
