The Picasso next door

Imagine Adam Rudolphi’s delight when he walked into an Honors College conference room for a job interview and came face to face with fine art, including works by Joan Miró and Picasso. Rudolphi was applying to be the college’s coordinator for admissions and enrollment, but he has a doctorate in art history and experience as a researcher at the National Gallery of Art.

“It was a very serendipitous moment,” Rudolphi says. “I took it as a sign that I was in the right place.”

The Picasso is an abstract portrait done in linocut—a traditional printmaking technique the artist focused on intensely in the 1950s. About the size of a sheet of paper, it hangs unassumingly amidst a larger collection of paintings, sculptures, works on paper and mixed media objects securely displayed in the Honors College offices. There’s also a large lithograph by internationally acclaimed surrealist Miró and eight works by pictorialist photographer A. Aubrey Bodine, including ones published in Harper’s Bazaar and The Saturday Evening Post. The works belong to the Lieberman collection and they display an astonishing variety, representing a diverse mix of local and international artists working in a range of media and art movements. All have a story to tell.

Left: “Femme au Chapeau” by Picasso. This linocut uses a printmaking technique wherein the artist carves into a linoleum block. Picasso immersed himself in the medium during the 1950s. (Alex Wright | Towson University); Right: “Le Centenaire de L’Imprimerie Mourlot” by Joan Miró. This lithograph by the internationally acclaimed surrealist artist was a favorite of Sidney Lieberman. Rudolphi learned it once hung in the Liebermans’ family dining room. (Alex Wright | Towson University)

Left: “Meaning of Life” by Kwan-Mo Chung. The Liebermans invited Chung to exhibit his work at their gallery during the short period of time he lived in the U.S. (Alex Wright | Towson University); Right: “Two Nuns” by A. Aubrey Bodine. The Baltimore-based photographer stopped his car on Charles Street to take this photo. Bodine added to the falling snow by drawing on the negative. (Alex Wright | Towson University)

“Seated Dancer” by Frayda Shalowitz. This is the only bronze sculpture by the artist that’s not a public work done on commission. Rudolphi learned the artist’s father lived just a mile from the Liebermans’ home. (Alex Wright | Towson University)

That story starts with Sidney and Mignon Lieberman, who began donating what would eventually total 47 works to TU in 1983. Both were 1932 graduates of what was then Maryland State Normal School, and both shared a keen interest in the arts.

“While Dr. Lieberman was a dentist by trade, he was also a talented jewelry maker and photographer, and Mrs. Lieberman graduated from the arts-focused Barnes School,” Rudolphi says. “They were passionate about travel and collected art during trips at home and abroad,” Rudolphi says. “That resulted in a tremendously rich collection.”  

But it was only through a series of difficult losses that the collection came to TU. The Liebermans lost their only children before either reached 30. As the couple approached their later years, they sought an enduring home where their collection could be protected and enjoyed by the public.

“You can imagine there must have been this tremendous sense of loss inside them,” Rudolphi says. “They turned that loss into an amazing act of love and generosity to the university.”

Now, Rudolphi is honoring that generosity by uncovering new information about the family, the works they collected and the artists who made them. During bits of time between advising students and planning admissions events, he scours books and newspaper articles, contacts art historians and even reaches out to artists themselves to discover lost details about the works. Already, he’s recovered a number of titles and production dates along with a host of interesting stories. But Rudolphi says he’s just getting started.

“My goal is to tell a story about every work,” he says. “I’ll keep going until I meet that goal.”