Milton Avery, “Sunday Riders,” 1929

Milton Avery’s Sunday Riders was the very first object to be accessioned into the collection of the Neuberger Museum of Art. 

In the summer of 1967, then Governor of New York Nelson Rockefeller invited Roy and Marie Neuberger to his Pocantico Hills family estate north of Manhattan for lunch. It was at that time, according to Neuberger, that Rockefeller “made a very strong pitch for my giving a substantial portion of my collection, [saying] that he would name a museum-to-be in Purchase in Westchester County” on what would become one of the State University of New York campuses. Not long after, Neuberger heard the vision for Purchase College and the museum to be built there from Samuel B. Gould, who was SUNY Chancellor, and Abbott Kaplan, who was to become the first president of Purchase College. “It was a new concept, and it was absolutely inspiring to me…. It would be both an educational institution and a cultural center for a large population in Westchester plus Greenwich.” It would train students in both the liberal arts and the arts with a world-class museum as well as what Neuberger referred to as “a miniature Lincoln Center.” Neuberger believed that the mission of the college was “very much in line with [his] whole philosophy of purchasing art,” since one of his motives for acquiring art had been to encourage young artists.” In September 1969, Neuberger made a promised gift of approximately 300 works of art to be donated over the following decade. The gift was considered highly unusual for a public university. Milton Avery’s Sunday Riders was the very first object to be accessioned into the collection of the Neuberger Museum of Art.