Neuberger Museum of Art Receives Generous Donation to Fund New Museum Acquisition

Tracy Fitzpatrick, Director of the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, SUNY, announced today that the Museum received a generous gift of $40,000 from Lori and Yale I. Paprin, Greenwich residents and passionate contemporary art collectors. The gift funded the purchase of Eric Aho’s large exuberant painting Approach, which is on view in New at the Neuberger Museum of Art: Recent Acquisitions, through June 16, 2019. Aho is a critically acclaimed American painter known for his large-scale, bold, abstracted paintings that evoke landscapes and other natural forms.

Paprin, who is CEO of Yale Realty Services in West Harrison, says that he has amassed a large collection of contemporary art over the past forty years, and in that collection is a work by Aho whom he has known for a decade. “As enthusiastic supporters of the Neuberger, Yale suggested that the museum consider one of Aho’s works for our collection,” Dr. Fitzpatrick recalls, who accompanied the museum’s chief curator Helaine Posner to the DC Moore Gallery in New York City where they made the selection and the Paprins signed the check.

Other new acquisitions also on view in Recent Acquisitions are two works by Louise Fishman, one of which is a gift by Martha Macks-Kahn and Dr. Peter Kahn, and the other by Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art; sixteen paintings by Stephen Mueller made possible by artist Pat Steir; a sculpture by Ann Messner, gift of the artist; and photographs by Dulce Pinzon and Betsabee Romero, both also gifts of the artists.

“Collecting the work of living artists very much reflects the philosophy of Neuberger Museum of Art’s founding patron Roy R. Neuberger,” Dr. Fitzpatrick says. “Roy was one of America’s foremost art patrons and philanthropists whose guiding principle was to support and encourage the work of living artists.” In 1974, his initial donation of 106 outstanding works formed the core of the museum’s permanent collection, which today has grown to over 6,000 works of uncompromised quality and variety.

“We are most grateful to the Paprins, Pat Steir, artists and others for their generous gifts which will enable today’s visitors to the museum as well as future generations to study and appreciate the art of our times, and hopefully motivate them to return to the Neuberger again and again. Our collection is exceptional,” said Dr. Fitzpatrick.

The Neuberger Museum of Art opened on the campus of Purchase College, State University of New  York, in 1974 with a core collection donated by Roy R. Neuberger, one of the greatest private collectors, philanthropists, and arts advocates of the twentieth century. Today, critically acclaimed exhibitions, tours, lectures, and interactive programs for patrons of all ages make the Neuberger a center of teaching and learning for all stages of life.