Roy Rothschild Neuberger (unrelated to the famous
Rothschild family) Born into a wealthy Jewish family, he was orphaned at the age of 12 after the deaths of his father Louis Neuberger, an immigrant from Germany and his mother, Bertha Rothschild, who was originally from Chicago. Neuberger described himself as having been interested during high school in tennis. He matriculated at
New York University, originally to study journalism, but grew restless and dropped out without obtaining a degree. His first job was working in the Manhattan department store
B. Altman and Company. Appalled that artwork was often only considered valuable after an artist's death, Neuberger vowed to support living artists, claiming "the contemporary world should buy the work of contemporary artists." Neuberger often purchased works from artists who were struggling financially, including Jackson Pollock, Willem DeKooning, and Mark Rothko, believing that the financial support would help the artists stay on their career track. He moved back to the United States and entered
Wall Street in 1929, seven months before
Black Tuesday. He started out with
Halle & Stieglitz Art patron By 1939, Neuberger had made enough money to buy the first painting that he would lend out to promote the artist:
Peter Hurd's
Boy from the Plains. He allowed
Nelson Rockefeller, another avid art collector, to use
Boy from the Plains in a travelling American art exhibition. Rockefeller's exhibition travelled to South America, and many people in both South and North America were thus exposed to Hurd's art. Among the other artists whose works Neuberger collected are
Jackson Pollock,
Ben Shahn,
William Baziotes,
Alexander Calder,
Stuart Davis,
Louis Eilshemius,
Edward Hopper,
Jacob Lawrence,
Jack Levine,
David Smith and especially
Milton Avery. The first Avery he ever purchased was
Gaspé Landscape, which he bought during a snowstorm and wrapped carefully before going out, determined to keep the painting intact to make the man famous. Neuberger still had
Gaspé Landscape on a wall in his apartment at the time of his death. Neuberger also began donating works to institutions, among them the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, the
Museum of Modern Art, and the
Whitney Museum, as well as many college and university museums. Rockefeller later became governor of
New York and created the
State University of New York system. For his friend Neuberger, Rockefeller established a museum at
Purchase College as part of the new university where Neuberger could display a substantial amount of the art he had acquired. Neuberger claimed to have never sold a work of art, stating that "It would be a criminal act for me to sell", and that "I buy because I love the work." ==Family==