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Lessing Julius Rosenwald (February 10, 1891 – June 24, 1979) was an American businessman, a collector of rare books and art, a chess patron, and a philanthropist.
About this Collection. In 1943, at the height of WWII, Lessing J. Rosenwald (1891-1979) announced that he would donate the entirety of his graphic arts collection, as well as all future purchases, to both the Library of Congress and the National Gallery of Art.
Rosenwald's assemblage of books, plates, drawings, and engravings by William Blake is one of the finest ever brought together. Of the twenty illuminated books described in Geoffrey Keynes's Blake bibliography, the collection contains fourteen, as well as duplicates and extra plates.
Lessing J. Rosenwald, chairman of Sears Roebuck Company from 1932 to 1939, formed the collection over a period of nearly 40 years. He gave the collection to the Library of Congress in a series of gifts, beginning in 1943, with the final installment coming after the collector’s death in 1979.
Jun 26, 1979 · Lessing J. Rosenwald, former chairman of Sears, Roebuck & Company, who gave the United States Government collections of prints, drawings and books now worth more than $35 million, died of a...
Lessing J. Rosenwald: Tribute to a Collector. Ruth E. Fine. Published 1982. 272 pages. Lessing J. Rosenwald: Tribute to a Collector honors one of the founding benefactors of the National Gallery of Art and the Gallery’s foremost donor of prints and drawings.
Heir to the Sears & Roebuck fortune, Rosenwald opened Alverthorpe in 1939, shortly after he retired from his position as chairman of the board of Sears and Roebuck, in order to devote himself full-time to his collections and philanthropy.
