Memorial Celebration Of Leibers

On Saturday, July 28, at 2 PM, the Leiber Collection, located in Springs, will be the site for a joyous celebration of the lives and works of Judith and Gerson Leiber.

The Leibers each died on April 28. Judith was 97 and Gerson was 96.

Theirs had been lives of mutual support, and that mutuality continued to the end of their marriage of 72 years. With Gerson’s urging, Judith had established the Judith Leiber Company in 1963, and she produced some of the most artful handbags the world has ever beheld. And with her support, Gerson became the acclaimed modernist painter that he was.

There are more than 80 Judith Leiber handbags in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and each First Lady, from 1953 to 2000, carried a Judith Leiber handbag to her husband’s presidential inauguration. Last year, the Museum of Art and Design in New York City celebrated Judith’s achievements with a one-woman retrospective exhibition.

Gerson Leiber’s paintings are represented in the permanent collections of the most prestigious museums in the United States. In the last four years of his life, he had a half dozen one-man shows in galleries on Long Island and in Manhattan, as well as in numerous other locations.

The celebration at the Leiber Collection will conclude with reminiscences by some of the Leibers’ closest friends, including their biographer, Jeffrey Sussman, the Leiber Collection curator Ann Stewart, and Leiber Foundation trustee Patti Kenner.

Through the generosity of the Judith and Gerson Leiber Foundation, countless lovers of art and fashion will behold the accomplishments of two fine artists. Visitors will enjoy the current exhibition of handbags and paintings in a Renaissance-style Palladian museum, which is situated in a beautiful sculpture garden.

In their memory, donations can be made to the Judith and Gerson Leiber Foundation, 446 Old Stone Highway, East Hampton, NY 11937. For further information about the foundation and/or to RSVP for the memorial celebration, email info@leibercollection.org or phone 631-329-3288.