The late Sidney Rothberg’s passion for art began with the first impressionist painting he ever saw on the streets of Paris as a soldier during World War II.
Rothberg turned down the opportunity to acquire that unidentified painting for a pack of cigarettes, figuring it was stolen, but the beauty of the work stuck with him, and sparked a lifelong investigation into art and artists.
This week, more than 240 works of art that Rothberg collected over decades, and hung floor-to-ceiling in his Philadelphia house, will be offered at Freeman’s | Hindman in his home city during live auctions at noon on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The collection is a treasure-trove of works spanning impressionism—his first love—to contemporary art, and includes drawings, watercolors, paintings, and sculptures. Subjects range from figuration to landscapes to abstraction.
Though Rothberg, who died at age 83 in 2008, was a commodities trader by profession, he became a lifelong student of art after that Parisian encounter. He began when he was in college at the University of Pennsylvania by using his free time to research in the stacks of the Philadelphia Public Library, absorbing everything he could.
“He was a savant and he memorized every book,” says his daughter, Saranne Rothberg, who is bringing the collection to market.
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In his early days of work, Rothberg put his knowledge to work by acquiring art, buying his first piece at Freeman’s auction house in Center City Philadelphia (Freeman’s merged with Hindman in January). When he was a young father, he became a student at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, forming a longtime friendship with Violette de Mazia, curator at the foundation, which focuses primarily on impressionist, post-impressionist, and modern works. Rothberg eventually became a guest lecturer at the institution.
The relationship with the Barnes “deeply influenced” his collection, Saranne says. “From the time he came back from the war, [he] grew up in the Barnes as a collector.”
Among highlights of the sales is Pierre-August Renoir’s Pierre Goujon en Costume Marin, 1885, which was executed during a “professional crossroads where the artist was attempting to break the impressionist mold and find a new aesthetic,” according to the catalog for the sale. The painting is expected to sell for between US$250,000 and US$400,000.
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From a strikingly different period is Richard Diebenkorn’s Girl in Tiled Room, 1957, an early portraiture work by the artist. It’s estimated to sell for between US$200,000 and US$300,000.
Other artists in the collection include Georges Seurat, Marsden Hartley, Odilon Redon, Robert Delaunay, Paul Klee, Édouard Vuillard, Robert Rauschenberg, Wayne Thiebaud, and George Condo. Several female artists are represented, too, including Marie Laurencin, Alice Baber, Grace Hartigan, Louise Bourgeois, and Lee Bontecou.
Rothberg was a familiar site at Freeman’s for decades, according to Alasdair Nichol, deputy chairman and director of fine art at Freeman’s | Hindman, but he also bought frequently in New York and during his extensive travels. Renoir’s Pierre Goujon was purchased at a Palais Galliéra auction in Paris in 1964 and the Diebenkorn portrait was acquired at a Sotheby’s auction in New York in 1981, for instance.
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For years, Rothberg would commute from Philadelphia to New York where he was a commodities trader, serving on the board of the Commodity Exchange (Comex) for a time and assisting in the 1994 merger with the New York Mercantile Exchange, Saranne says. After the closing bell each day, he’d be “on the hunt,” she says. “He would go to auctions, museums, galleries.”
According to Saranne, her father included her in his passion, always asking, “What do you see?” The question would make her really study a work of art, but it also could also reveal something in a work that he may not have seen.
Saranne recalls being taken to an exhibit at Freeman’s “before I even got to kindergarten,” and being picked up so she could see the works at eye level. Her father asked “what do you see?” and then, which work of art in the room she would want to buy.
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“Then he literally took me to that auction and he gave me the catalog and he taught me how to bid,” Saranne says. “I sat there and followed along with the catalog, and when it got close, he handed me the paddle and said, ‘buy your piece.’” She recalls the auctioneer’s response when her bid won: “Sold to the little girl with the doll in the second row.”
The question, “What do you see?” is the title of the two-day sale because Rothberg asked the same question to everybody, “whether you were art-savvy or not,” Saranne says. And he genuinely wanted to know. “He was always a student,” she says.
The Rothberg collection toured Paris, New York, and Chicago before returning to Philadelphia for the sale this week. Part of the proceeds from the auctions will benefit the lives of people living with cancer, says Saranne, herself a survivor of stage four cancer. The first grant will be given to the American Association for Cancer Research, based in Philadelphia.
