Legend has it he said: "Well, hell, Sara. If you want to help artists, buy their paintings."
And so she did: almost 200 artworks, by more than 100 artists — a major collection, plus a traveling program to take contemporary American art around the country.
Trained in traditional, realist art, Roby, who died in 1986, wanted to preserve that tradition against the encroachment of Abstract Expressionism. The drips and dribbles of Jackson Pollock, the revolutionary slashes of Willem de Kooning were wow-ing the art world in the '50s, and elbowing Realism out of galleries and museums. So she and her advisors cruised artists' studios, and bought pieces hot off their easels.
In Raphael Soyer's 1980 oil painting Annunciation, a young woman leans against the wall near a bathroom sink. She is shoeless, one bare foot on top of the other. Another stands nearby, wearing a turquoise slip and holding towels.
Both women are pretty — with dark hair, pointed chins — they could be sisters. And they're pensive. The moment is intense. What's going on? "Annunciation." Has one told the other she's pregnant? Had an abortion? Made a mistake? The painting is realistic and mysterious — a puzzle to ponder.
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