Roy Neuberger

In 1997, he published his memoir, So Far, So Good - the First 94 Years. His life as an art collector is chronicled in his 2003 book The Passionate Collector: Eighty Years in the World of Art. In his later years Neuberger was often seen in the company of Kitty Carlisle Hart. Neuberger died on December 24, 2010, at the age of one hundred and seven and was buried at Mount Neboh Cemetery where other members of his family were interred.

On November 15, 2007, President George W. Bush awarded the then-104-year-old Neuberger the 2007 National Medal of Arts. 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."

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. With the help of architect Philip Johnson, the Neuberger Museum of Art was built on the SUNY Purchase College campus and opened in 1974. Neuberger contributed more than 500 of his paintings toward the collection.

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.

Regarding the company he co-founded, he said "Art in the workplace has been a part of Neuberger Berman's corporate culture since the investment firm was founded in 1939. In 1990 Neuberger Berman began developing its own art collection, emphasizing the work of emerging mid-career artists from around the world and presenting their works in an enriching environment for employees and visitors."

He moved back to the United States and entered Wall Street in 1929, seven months before Black Tuesday. He started out with Halle & Stieglitz and sold short RCA shares, through the stock market crash and well into the Great Depression. He founded Neuberger Berman in 1939 with Robert Berman. In 1950, Neuberger's firm started one of the first no-load mutual funds in the United States, the Guardian Fund, which is still in operation today.

Neuberger painted and studied art until 1928, when he read Florent Fels' biography of Vincent van Gogh. He was startled when he learned how Van Gogh had only sold one painting, and was heartstricken to learn that Van Gogh, like so many other artists, lived in pain, poverty and misery. 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.

Roy Rothschild Neuberger (July 21, 1903 – December 24, 2010) was an American financier who contributed money to raise public awareness of modern art through his acquisition of pieces he deemed worthy. He was a co-founder of the investment firm Neuberger Berman. Roy Neuberger served for several decades as Honorary Trustee, Benefactor, and member of the Department of Modern Art's Visiting Committee at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.