Elene Isles de Saint Phalle, née Canrobert, was born in 1925, shortly after World War I, in the Saar, a protectorate of the League of Nations. When the Saar held a referendum on its future in 1935, it voted to become the western state of Nazi-dominated Germany. At that point, Elene’s parents decided that it would be in their best interest to move to neighboring Luxembourg, hoping for a better life. Sadly, after living in Luxembourg for only three years, it became apparent that Europe was headed for war once again. So, like many others during that time, the family left Europe and took a freighter from Antwerp, heading towards an unknown future in the United States.

Elene and her parents disembarked at the freighter’s last stop in Los Angeles, California. In 1938, Los Angeles was a landscape reminiscent of Elene’s mother’s childhood in Cairo, Egypt where her father was a German engineer for the railroad system. The family decided to settle in Beverly Hills and Elene’s father opened an art gallery specializing in European paintings. Elene adapted well to life in America and upon completing high school, she went to the University of California at Berkeley, where she also taught French. After graduating, Elene moved to New York City where she completed graduate studies in international affairs at Columbia University. While living at Columbia’s International House, she was recruited to be a translator for the then new, United Nations (UN), a place where she met many of her lifelong friends. The role at the UN was a perfect fit for Elene given her interests in geopolitics, her international background, and fluency in six languages.

While working at the UN, Elene met and married her first husband, Philip Isles, an investment banker who, over many years, had assembled a wide-ranging collection of Impressionist and Old Masters works. During their happy and loving marriage, Elene and Philip had two sons together, Christopher and Geoffrey, who joined Philip’s three children from his first marriage. Tragically, just days after Geoffrey’s birth, Philip passed away suddenly, leaving the art collection to Elene.

Elene was intelligent, sophisticated and highly cultured. She was an adventurous traveler and a brilliant conversationalist. People who knew her well referred to her as a “Grande Dame” and Renaissance woman. As a widow, she took on additional responsibilities, becoming an avid and astute investor with the goal of preserving her and her husband’s art legacy. Many people appreciated the collection over the years as she was a gracious hostess who loved to entertain her friends, including many prominent industrialists, Wall Street executives, diplomats, politicians, writers, artists, and other cultural figures, from the US and abroad. Her annual Christmas Party always brought together an expanding family, as well as dear friends, her own and those of her family. Elene eventually married again and had two more children, Marc and Diane de Saint Phalle. She loved having visitors at her “Hotel de Saint Phalle,” which had locations in New York City, Sands Point on Long Island, Tuxedo Park, and Sotogrande, Spain. When visiting Elene’s New York City apartment, guests enjoyed a great collection of works by Renoir, Degas, Manet, Lautrec, and many other renowned artists. These works were prominently featured, but at the same time were accessible as they were woven into the fabric of an active family home on Park Avenue.

Elene was an avid traveler who enjoyed exploring exotic places all over the world with close friends and family. She loved attending the Metropolitan Opera, visiting the world’s great museums of art, playing tennis and bridge, and even flying a plane in college until her father found out and grounded her before she received her pilot’s license. Her obsession with the financial markets was legendary and she often hosted dinners at her New York City apartment with some of the biggest names on Wall Street. But most of all, she was a loving mother, who was dedicated to preserving the legacy of her art collection for her four children.