A Tribute to Rosalind Gersten Jacobs

As part of our centennial celebration, join The Phillips Collection for the launch of a series of programs that explore what drives collectors and how they build their collections.

The first in this series is a tribute to Rosalind Gersten Jacobs (1925-2019), a collector and friend of Dada and Surrealist artist Man Ray, featuring a premier film showing and a conversation with Curatorial Associate Wendy Grossman about stewarding the collection with daughter Peggy Jacobs Bader and Collections Manager Maura Kehoe Collins.

The Accidental Collector Rosalind Gersten Jacobs (1925-2019): Stewarding a Unique Collection of Surrealist Art

 

Roz Jacobs was a force of nature. She met many of the Surrealist artists whose work she ultimately collected when she was a young fashion buyer for Macy’s Little Shop in the 1950s. Along with her husband, Melvin Jacobs, she went on to amass a unique collection of artworks by leading figures in the Surrealist movement, including paintings, objects, and drawings by René Magritte, Marcel Duchamp, Dorothea Tanning, Max Ernst, and Salvador Dalí. Many of the artists in their collection became close family friends over the decades as the collection grew, foremost among them Man Ray, Lee Miller, Roland Penrose, and Bill and Noma Copley.

The 16-minute documentary to be premiered at this event features clips from interviews with Roz, as well as archival documentation. The Accidental Collector Rosalind Gersten Jacobs: Legacy of a Life Among Surrealist Friends and their Art is an abbreviated story of this special collection and Roz’s life among her Surrealist friends.

 

The film and this event were organized in tribute to Roz Jacobs and in honor of her and the Jacobs family’s generous gifts of important works of art to The Phillips Collection.

IMAGE: Peggy Jacobs Bader and Rosalind Gersten Jacobs at The Phillips Collection for opening reception for Man Ray-Human Equations: A Journey from Mathematics to Shakespeare, 2015. Photo: Pepe Gomez. Background left: Man Ray, Julius Caesar, 1948, Promised Gift from The Rosalind Gersten Jacobs and Melvin Jacobs Collection, 2020, Background right: Man Ray, Mathematical model, 1934-35, Centre Pompidou, Paris.