Who is Roy R. Neuberger?: Part 2

“… the fact that it is part of a college campus is particularly fortunate. Our appreciation of art flourishes best when it gets an early start in our lives… thousands of young people on this campus, now and for generations to come, will become more sensitized to beauty and to the world around them through the art surrounding them in Neuberger Museum.”

- Nelson Rockefeller, 1977 at Purchase College

By the 1960s, Mr. Neuberger’s modern art purchases and advocacy practices had gained a reputation in the collector community, but he preferred to donate his art to freestanding museums and college art museums rather than sell it. In 1962, he refused to give his collection to the Met, who in exchange promised to name its new American wing after him.

“My collection is not really well-related to the American wing, which is largely historical,” Neuberger explained.

In 1965 he turned down an anonymous offer to buy his collection for $5 million. The offer came from Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, who he knew from his work with other museums. Rockefeller, who served as a trustee for the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, envisioned a public college where the liberal arts and creative art conservatories could exist under the same roof.

He requested works from Mr. Neuberger’s art collection again in 1967, this time as a donation to help establish a museum on this campus. Committed to facilitating access to the arts, Mr. Neuberger promised a gift of 300 donated artworks to the museum over the next decade. In 1972, the Neuberger Museum of Art became the first fully completed building on the campus and opened its doors for students and professors who used it as both classroom and office space. In 1974, already an established hub for campus life, the museum opened its doors again, but this time as a fully installed museum. Mr. Neuberger played a large role in managing the museum in its earlier years, and guest-spoke at some Purchase College arts classes.

“My father loved what was happening with the museum,” says Jim Neuberger. “He loved the fact that students came there and saw modern art.”

The museum housed many of Mr. Neuberger’s paintings and sculptures when it first opened, including monumental works by Jackson Pollock, Stuart Davis, Edward Hopper and Georgia O’Keeffe, as well as many works by Milton Avery located on the second floor, which Neuberger considered to be the true heart of his collection.

In addition, Mr. Neuberger’s friends, Lawrence Gussman and Elliot Hirshberg, donated their collections of African art to the museum in 1974. These and several other early acquisitions have become integral components of the Neuberger’s permanent collection that is still exhibited today.

Bryan Robertson, who was the first director of the Neuberger Museum, commissioned American Abstract-expressionist painter Cleve Gray to create a site-specific work for the museum’s opening. Titled Threnody, the 250-foot wide painting laments those on both sides of the Vietnam War, and was recently on view at the Neuberger fall 2019. 1974. Jim Neuberger recalls that at an early visit to Threnody, he spotted the American playwright Arthur Miller at the Neuberger, who was friends with Cleve Gray at the time.

Today, Roy R. Neuberger’s legacy extends beyond his 950 total donated artworks. He founded the Roy R. Neuberger Prize, a cash award and Neuberger exhibition biennially awarded to an artist chosen by an advisory panel consisting of the museum’s director and curators, and various faculty at Purchase College. Mr. Neuberger fully funded the first prize in 2008, at a celebration for his 105th birthday. Since his passing in 2010, Roy’s son Jim Neuberger and his wife Helen Stambler Neuberger have supported the program since.

“It entirely stems from his idea that peoplet who are supportive of the arts should be supporting living artists so that they are able to benefit from their successes during their lifetime,” says Tracy Fitzpatrick, Neuberger Museum Director.

Gabrielle Bohrman
Neuberger Museum of Art
Fall 2020 Communications Intern
NEU Student Voices Blogger

To learn more about Mr. Neuberger’s earlier collecting days, check out Who Is Roy R. Neuberger: Part 1.