ROLF’s home page image
The Robert Owen Lehman Foundation Incorporated was founded in 1943 by the aforementioned Mr. Lehman[1]. Like his father, Mr. Lehman became an important collector of valuable art pieces. Upon his death in 1969, his entire collection was bequeathed to the Foundation. A complete list of his collection is available here. On January 30, 1970, more than three thousand works of art dating from the Renaissance to the 20th century were brought over to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Today, these pieces are held in the Robert Lehman Wing, exhibited in accordance to his wishes.
Mission & Aims
The Musical Times Vol. 105, No. 1454 (Apr., 1964), p. 290 outlines the ROLF’s five major aims[2]:
- to assemble in the Lincoln Center Library an archive of these manuscripts and other source material (and ‘by so doing ROLF hopes to encourage those collectors who, unenlightened as to the public interest, hoard their precious source material to make these cultural treasures available for the benefit of the community’);
- to publish, below cost price, a quarterly magazine, Opus 1, consisting of complete scores and their performance on a 10-inch LP ‘by the finest musicians available’; Op 1 No 1 is due this month;
- to sponsor live concerts; the first is in New York on April 11;
- to give grants for composition and research;
- to publish fine facsimiles of musical manuscript. A thousand of each are then distributed free of charge to libraries, conservatories and universities all over the world; another thousand are made available to individuals at a low cost.
Concurrently, ROLF’s states on their webpage: “It is the mission of the Foundation to fulfill and further Robert Lehman’s vision and therefore to support the visual arts in any fashion that seems likely to enhance the appreciation, knowledge and enjoyment of this central aspect of our culture”[3].
Grants
Two Young Girls at the Piano 1892 Pierre-Auguste Renoir, part of ROL collection at the Met
At present, the ROLF is accepting funding proposals for the Robert Lehman Foundation Art Lectureship Program, grants meant to provide Colleges with the opportunity to enrich their art history curricula. The website features guidelines for grant proposals as well as an upload page for potential grantees. Recent grantees include: Alliance for the Arts, Columbus Museum of Art, The Drawing Center, among many others. The Board of Trustees of the Foundation reviews proposals on a bi-annual basis, with meetings generally held in October and May. Since 2012, organizations that have received the grant for four consecutive years are not eligible for consideration for a subsequent two years[4].
Facsimile Reproductions
The first facsimile reproductions by ROLF began in 1964 with Debussy’s Prelude a I’apres-midi[5]. Chopin’s Étude Op. 10 No. 3 was reproduced the following year in 1965, upon the death of Alfred Cortot to whom the original manuscript belonged[6]. This Étude is a collotype made from the original Chopin score.
[1] Robert Owen Lehman Foundation: History
[2] Dawes 290
[3] ROLF: History
[4] ROLF: Guidelines
[5] Dawes 290
[6] Dawes 290