In the early 1960s, Hedreen founded the development company R.C. Hedreen Co. (now known for major local hotels like the Hilton and Hyatt Regency). The Hedreens started collecting a few years later. The couple initially chose “regional paintings” to decorate their house but soon broadened their scope.

In the following decades, they purchased artwork at galleries and auction houses in New York, California, Chicago and Europe, scooping up paintings by famed and historic artists like Titian and Jan Lievens as well as 20th-century photos by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Irving Penn and Andy Warhol, plus contemporary art by living painters like Amy Sherald, Cecily Brown, Tomma Abts and Rashid Johnson. Some of the most recent works in the collection are basically brand-new, created in 2022.