Julia Louis-Dreyfus' dad devotes art collection to education

• William Louis-Dreyfus on his famous daughter%3A %22She%27s a wonderful actress and an even better daughter and mother.%22
• On collecting art%3A %22Collecting art is a bad habit that is hard to lose. I am still doing it in spite of the fact that I tried to stop.%22
• On the Harlem Children%27s Zone%3A %22It%27s a worthwhile organization with a great mission.%22

MOUNT KISCO – As a 13-year-old boy studying in Paris, William Louis-Dreyfus was not always interested in school.

He'd often skip classes and go to the movies, or the Louvre.

The museum (an unlikely place for a teenager, even in Paris) had a special draw.

"I have always been very interested in what hangs on the wall, and paintings are interesting to look at," said Louis-Dreyfus, the billionaire businessman and father of Julia Louis-Dreyfus (of "Seinfeld" fame). "Back then, there was one painting by Frans Hals, a Dutch master, of a young peasant girl with a very décolleté blouse that I remember and that may be what got me to go back all the time."

The 82-year-old Bedford resident sat down last week in his private gallery in Mount Kisco — filled with more than 3,500 pieces of art — to talk about how the works would be devoted to increasing access to education. The gallery, in a nondescript 16,000-square-foot former electronics warehouse along Kisco Avenue, is open to public by appointment (email info@wldfoundation.org).

On Oct. 19, the gallery will hold a private viewing of the Louis-Dreyfus Family Collection to benefit the Horace Greeley Scholarship Fund.

"In a community like Chappaqua, it can be surprising how deep the need is," said Leslie Kuhn, president of the fund. "There are people who have been unemployed for a long time: single parents, those battling illness, and there are kids in the care of siblings. There's a range of circumstances."

Last year, 36 families applied for assistance to help meet a gap in excess of $400,000. Grants totaling $161,850 were awarded to 26 applicants for the 2014-15 school year. The fund was established in 1946 by high school students to award need-based grants to classmates pursuing higher education. Members approached Louis-Dreyfus about the gallery reception fundraiser.

The idea of using his art collection for education took shape when Louis-Dreyfus saw a documentary on the Harlem Children's Zone, a nonprofit that seeks to break the cycle of generational poverty by offering parenting workshops, preschool programs and by opening charter schools.

"It's a worthwhile organization with a great mission," he said.

After meeting with its founder, Geoffrey Canada, Louis-Dreyfus came up with a plan to donate most of his collection to the nonprofit over the next several years. The collection is worth millions of dollars and includes works by over 170 artists — Alberto Giacometti, George Grosz, Red Grooms, James Castle and Claes Oldenburg among them.

"The collection is very eclectic and includes self-taught artists as well as important works by traditionally trained artists," said Christina Kee, the gallery's assistant curator.

One wall is filled with works by Bill Traylor, who was born into slavery in Alabama. Traylor, who spent most of his life working as a slave and sharecropper, began to draw at the age of 85, working on the sidewalks of Montgomery.

After years of living in Manhattan, Louis-Dreyfus moved to Bedford some 10 years ago, into a house he'd owned since 1970. Most of his art collection had been displayed at corporate offices throughout the world, as well as at several Four Seasons Hotels built by his company.

He bought the warehouse about three years to display his collection, acquired over 40 years.

While the first painting Louis- Dreyfus bought was by French artist Jean Debuffet, whose works are now sought after, he is fond of saying that he doesn't own any of the usual suspects like Andy Warhol or Damien Hirst. (On Warhol: "He's an illustrator, not an artist.")

His daughter, in a documentary explaining her father's efforts to change the lives of children through education, channels her inner Elaine at one point as she asks an art expert of her father's collection: "Is it all crap?"

She is quickly reassured it's not.

"My kids (he has three daughters) think it's all a little crazy, but they are happy about how the collection will ultimately be used," said Louis-Dreyfus, a former chairman of the Poetry Society of America, whose poems have been published in The New Criterion, The Hudson Review and the Southwest Review.

As the conversation turned to his famous daughter, now star of the HBO series "Veep", he was asked what he thought of her success.

"She was always very interested in acting. If the children are happy and successful, it's a great thing for parents," he said. "She's a wonderful actress and an even better daughter and mother."

So does he have a favorite Seinfeld episode?

"They are all so wonderful, it's hard to pick."

Given the ribbing he gets from his kids about his obsession with collecting art, does he still acquire pieces?

"Collecting art is a bad habit that is hard to lose," he said. "I am still doing it in spite of the fact that I tried to stop."

Twitter: @SwapnaVenugopal