Art Collector Roy Neuberger 1903-2010
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By Katherine Burton - Dec 24, 2010 4:17 PM CT
Roy Neuberger, a co-founder of money manager Neuberger Berman who
traded stocks until he was 101 and was a collector of such American
artists as Jackson Pollock, Georgia O’Keefe and Edward Hopper, has
died. He was 107.
He died of natural causes today at his New York home, said his son,
Jim Neuberger.
“He got to Wall Street in 1929, a few months before the crash. He was
25,” his son said. “He worked every day until he was 99.”
Neuberger bought about 1,000 works of art over the years. Unlike
stocks, which he traded for seven decades, Neuberger said he never
sold any art.
“It would be a criminal act for me to sell,” he told Bloomberg News in
2003, the year he turned 100. “In art I buy because I love the work.”
Rather than sell, Neuberger donated works to New York’s Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American
Art, and to dozens of other U.S. museums. Most of his collection is at
the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York, in Westchester
County, north of New York City. The museum opened in 1974.
“In the beginning, I collected art for a purpose -- to help support
living artists,” Neuberger wrote in “So Far, So Good: The First 94
Years,” his 1997 memoir. “Now I am simply a lover of art.”
The National Endowment for the Arts awarded Neuberger a National Medal
of Arts in 2007. “His support of the visual arts has served as a model
for private philanthropy,” the NEA said.
‘Loved His Life’
Neuberger moved in 1991 to a seven-room apartment in the Pierre Hotel
on Fifth Avenue that he decorated with works by Alexander Calder,
Adolph Gottlieb and Milton Avery, among others.
“He loved his life, enjoying both his vocation and avocation,” said
his son. “I think he loved the fact that he supported living
artists.”
Roy Rothschild Neuberger was born on July 21, 1903, in Bridgeport,
Connecticut, the third child in a Jewish family of German ancestry.
(Neuberger disclaimed organized religion, which he said was the cause
of wars. He was involved with the humanist Ethical Culture movement.)
Orphaned at 12, Neuberger was raised by his older sister. He dropped
out of New York University after a year, worked three years at a
department store, then dipped into a $30,000 inheritance and sailed
for Paris in 1925.
He lived there four years, working for a decorating firm. Visiting the
Louvre three days a week confirmed his belief that “I had a good eye”
for art.
Van Gogh
Then Neuberger read a biography of Vincent Van Gogh that he said
changed his life by relating how the great Dutch painter struggled,
yet sold only a few pictures in his own lifetime.
Neuberger said he became determined to make a “fortune” to buy art and
support little-known artists. Returning to the U.S., he got a job on
Wall Street at the brokerage firm Halle & Stieglitz in 1929, months
before the stock market crashed.
He survived the plunge, correctly betting that Radio Corp. of America
would dive, and counted Joseph Kennedy and Bernard Baruch among his
early clients.
In 1939, Neuberger started his money-management firm with Robert
Berman, who had been his colleague for a decade at Halle & Stieglitz.
(Berman died of leukemia in 1954, at 44.) The firm was one of the
first to offer mutual funds without transaction fees.
Back Surgery
Neuberger became a serious collector in 1939 when he bought “Boy from
the Plains” by Peter Hurd, a New Mexico artist known for stark Western
landscapes. (Hurd’s portrait of Lyndon Johnson was later called “the
ugliest thing I ever saw” by the U.S. president, who refused to hang
it in the White House.)
Neuberger went to his office almost every day until he was 99, when
back surgery confined him to his Pierre Hotel apartment, said Gloria
Silverman, his assistant since 1996 and a Neuberger Berman employee
for about 30 years.
He retired officially a few months after Neuberger Berman went public
in October 1999, she said, and sold 23,000 shares for $688,399. He
controlled an additional 170,000 shares.
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. bought the money manager for $2.63
billion in 2003. After Lehman went bankrupt in 2008, an employee-led
buyout made Neuberger Berman an independent firm.
As an active stock trader, Neuberger estimated he was right 70 percent
of the time about the markets. “I enjoy it and I’m pretty good at it,”
he said on his 100th birthday, “but I make lots of mistakes.”
He is survived by two sons, Roy S. and Jim, a daughter, Ann Aceves,
and eight grandchildren. His wife, Marie, to whom he was married for
65 years, died in 1997.
Services are scheduled for Dec. 26 at Riverside Memorial Chapel in New
York.
To contact the reporter on this story: Katherine Burton in New York at
kbu...@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bill Ahearn at
bah...@bloomberg.net
Louis Epstein
: Roy Neuberger, Money Manager and Art Collector, Dies at 107 in New
: York
: By Katherine Burton - Dec 24, 2010 4:17 PM CT
: Roy Neuberger, a co-founder of money manager Neuberger Berman who
: traded stocks until he was 101 and was a collector of such American
: died. He was 107.
:
: He died of natural causes today at his New York home, said his son,
: Jim Neuberger.
: ?He got to Wall Street in 1929, a few months before the crash. He was
: 25,? his son said. ?He worked every day until he was 99.?
:
: Neuberger bought about 1,000 works of art over the years. Unlike
: stocks, which he traded for seven decades, Neuberger said he never
: sold any art.
: ?It would be a criminal act for me to sell,? he told Bloomberg News in
: 2003, the year he turned 100. ?In art I buy because I love the work.?
:
: Rather than sell, Neuberger donated works to New York?s Metropolitan
: Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American
: Art, and to dozens of other U.S. museums. Most of his collection is at
: the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York, in Westchester
: County, north of New York City. The museum opened in 1974.
: ?In the beginning, I collected art for a purpose -- to help support
: living artists,? Neuberger wrote in ?So Far, So Good: The First 94
: Years,? his 1997 memoir. ?Now I am simply a lover of art.?
:
: The National Endowment for the Arts awarded Neuberger a National Medal
: of Arts in 2007. ?His support of the visual arts has served as a model
: for private philanthropy,? the NEA said.
:
: ?Loved His Life?
:
: Neuberger moved in 1991 to a seven-room apartment in the Pierre Hotel
: on Fifth Avenue that he decorated with works by Alexander Calder,
: Adolph Gottlieb and Milton Avery, among others.
: ?He loved his life, enjoying both his vocation and avocation,? said
: his son. ?I think he loved the fact that he supported living
: artists.?
:
: Roy Rothschild Neuberger was born on July 21, 1903, in Bridgeport,
: Connecticut, the third child in a Jewish family of German ancestry.
He was the second-longest-lived Wall Street CEO with a July 21st
birthday,as far as I know.
-=-=-
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