2007.) In 1942 Ganz married Sally Wile and together they started a collection that represented more than merely a collection; for them it was a passion. Thereafter the Ganzes bought heavily and very well in all periods of Picasso. In 1956 they acquired the entire series of Picasso's variations of Eugène Delacroix's The Women of Algiers. The series was composed of 15 works and acquired at a cost of $212,953. Victor later sold all but five to dealers and museums for about $138,000. Knowing that Picasso by then had acquired the status of an Old Master, the Ganzes began shortly afterward to collect Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and later Frank Stella. When these artists, in their turn, had assumed magisterial status, the couple once again turned to young and less familiar artists, especially to Eva Hesse, Dorothea Rockburne and Mel Bochner. In every case the Ganzes worked as equal partners and showed a degree of discrimination that was much admired by museum professionals. During the rest of his life Ganz and his wife gathered several masterpieces for very low prices. The Ganzes accumulated works by Jasper Johns, Eva Hesse, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, Mel Bochner and other artists whom the couple championed and befriended. Their understanding of emerging leaders of the art world earned Victor appointments in leading museums and associations. On his retirement, he gave all his time and energy to public service for art. A trustee of the Whitney Museum beginning in 1981 and its vice president when he died, Ganz was the only active trustee to have served on all its acquisition committees. He was also chairman of the Battery Park City Fine Arts Committee from its inception in 1982 to his death. In 1985 Ganz served on the museum's advisory panel of the National Endowment for the Arts. Victor died of lung cancer at his home in New York on October 26, 1987, at age 74. Sally died January 27, 1997, also at home, aged 85. Dispersal of the collection Sally Ganz consigned 12 paintings to Sotheby's, where they sold for $48.4 million on November 10, 1988, the third-highest gross for a collection of modern and contemporary art sold at auction. Inheritance taxes forced the Ganzes' children to dispose of the most valuable part of the collection in 1997. In November 1997, works from the collection were sold in four separate auctions at Christie's, New York.