Robin Lehman

Robin Lehman
Born
Robert Owen Lehman Jr.

(1936-12-03) December 3, 1936
OccupationsDirector
Cinematographer
SpouseMarie Rolf
Children4
Parents
RelativesLehman family

Robert Owen "Robin" Lehman Jr. (born December 3, 1936) is an American documentary filmmaker, collector of autograph music manuscripts, and glass artist. He won the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) in two consecutive years and assembled the Robert Owen Lehman Collection of music manuscripts, held at the Morgan Library & Museum. With his wife, Marie Rolf, he founded the Robert Owen Lehman Foundation, a charitable organization supporting classical music.

Early life and family

Lehman was born in New York City. He is the son of Robert Lehman (1891–1969),[1] the head of Lehman Brothers and an art collector whose bequest of more than 2,600 works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art forms the Robert Lehman Collection.[2][3] His father was the son of Philip Lehman and grandson of Emanuel Lehman.[4] His mother, Ruth "Kitty" (Leavitt) Lehman (1904–1984), was the daughter of William Homer Leavitt and Ruth Bryan Owen; through his mother, Lehman is the great-grandson of William Jennings Bryan.

Lehman studied painting, figure drawing, and graphic arts. After undergraduate study at Yale University, he moved to Paris, where he studied musical composition with Nadia Boulanger.

Music manuscript collection

Lehman assembled the Robert Owen Lehman Collection of autograph music manuscripts, which has been on deposit at the Morgan Library & Museum since 1972. It is noted for its holdings of French music, particularly Debussy and Ravel, and includes manuscripts such as Bach's Cantata 171, Brahms's Third Symphony, Debussy's Jeux, Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor, Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, Mendelssohn's Hebrides overture, nine Mozart symphonies, Ravel's Boléro, Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire, Schumann's Second Symphony, and Stravinsky's Petrushka. In 2024, the Morgan drew on the collection for the exhibition Crafting the Ballets Russes.[5]

Film

While living in Europe, Lehman began making documentary short films. He won the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) in two consecutive years, for Don't (1974)[6] and The End of the Game (1975).[7] He contributed material to Tommy (1975),[8] the film adaptation of the Who's rock opera, and was co-cinematographer of The Black Pearl (1977).[9][10]

Glass art

After observing glassmaking at the studio of the Corning Museum of Glass, Lehman took up glass art. His work depicts sea creatures, insects, and other natural forms, and includes a series of portraits of composers.[11]

Benin Bronzes

Lehman owned a group of Benin Bronzes (reported as 34 objects), among the works looted from Benin City during the British expedition of 1897. Beginning in 2008, he promised them to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) as a gift to be transferred over time, and five objects entered the museum's collection.[12][13] As the MFA began exploring the return of the objects to Nigeria, Lehman, who opposed their restitution, requested that the works he still owned be returned to him. In April 2025, after the parties were unable to reach a mutually agreeable resolution, the MFA returned those objects to Lehman and closed its Benin Kingdom gallery; the five bronzes the museum had already acquired remained in its collection.[12][14][15]

Schiele restitution case

In 1964, Robert Lehman purchased Egon Schiele's 1917 work Portrait of the Artist's Wife, depicting the artist's wife, Edith, from Marlborough Fine Art in London, and gave it to his son. The work was lost around the time of Lehman's divorce in the 1970s and recovered in 2013.[16][17] In 2016, after Lehman transferred it to the Robert Owen Lehman Foundation, the foundation consigned the work to Christie's, which identified possible claims that it had been looted during the Nazi era. The foundation filed a declaratory-judgment action in the New York Supreme Court in Rochester seeking to confirm its title, against the heirs of the Viennese Jewish collectors Karl Mayländer and Heinrich Rieger and the Jewish Community of Vienna.[16][18] Following a trial that began in May 2024, Justice Daniel J. Doyle ruled on August 1, 2024, that Nazi persecution had severed the chain of title; he awarded the work to the heirs of Mayländer and dismissed the Rieger claim. The foundation complied with the ruling.[19][20]

Robert Owen Lehman Foundation

Lehman and his wife, Marie Rolf, professor emerita of music theory and former senior associate dean of graduate studies at the Eastman School of Music, founded the Robert Owen Lehman Foundation, a private charitable organization based in Rochester, New York, that supports classical music performance and related programs.[21] It is a separate entity from the Robert Lehman Foundation,[22] which supports the visual arts.

Filmography

  • 1972 Flyaway
  • 1973 Colter's Hell
  • 1973 Undercurrents
  • 1974 Sea Creatures
  • 1974 Don't
  • 1974 Experimental
  • 1974 Hotspot
  • 1975 See
  • 1975 The End of the Game
  • 1976 Nightlife
  • 1978 Manimals
  • 1981 Forever Young
  • 1981 The Little Players (about the eponymous puppet troupe)[23]
  • 1989 The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra

Personal life

Lehman and Rolf have two children, Rolf and Morgan[24]. He was previously married to Aki Lehman, with whom he has two children, Phillip and Kate.[25]

References

  1. ↑ "Robert Lehman Foundation: History & Legacy". Robert Lehman Foundation. Robert Lehman Foundation. Retrieved July 24, 2026.
  2. ↑ Gilson, Stuart C.; Mugford, Kristin (January 2019). The Rise and Fall of Lehman Brothers. Harvard Business School Case 217-041. Retrieved July 24, 2026.
  3. ↑ "The Robert Lehman Collection". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  4. ↑ Reif, Rita (May 16, 1990). "Article 985390 -- No Title". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 31, 2026.
  5. ↑ "Crafting the Ballets Russes: Exhibition | The Morgan Library & Museum". www.themorgan.org. Archived from the original on September 9, 2025. Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  6. ↑ "Academy Awards Acceptance Speeches - Search Results | Margaret Herrick Library | Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences". aaspeechesdb.oscars.org. Archived from the original on February 20, 2025. Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  7. ↑ "The Official Academy Awards Database". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  8. ↑ "Tommy Full Cast & Crew". IMDb. American Film Institute. Retrieved July 24, 2026.
  9. ↑ "The Black Pearl (1977) Full Credits". Letterboxd. Letterboxd Archive. Retrieved July 24, 2026.
  10. ↑ "The Black Pearl Full Cast & Crew". IMDb.
  11. ↑ "Artists and Techniques Videos | Corning Museum of Glass". glassmaking.cmog.org. Retrieved July 29, 2026.
  12. 1 2 "MFA Boston to return Benin Bronzes to wealthy donor, close gallery". The Art Newspaper. April 25, 2025. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  13. ↑ "Owner of MFA's Benin Bronzes is a collector and maker of art". The Boston Globe. April 24, 2025. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  14. ↑ "MFA Boston returns Benin Bronzes to donor opposed to restitution". Apollo. April 2025. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  15. ↑ "Benin Bronzes to Be Returned to Their Owner by Boston Museum". The New York Times. April 25, 2025. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  16. 1 2 "Ownership of Egon Schiele Drawing Lost During Holocaust to Be Decided by New York Court". ARTnews. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  17. ↑ "A Schiele Has Been Restituted to Heirs of a Jewish Art Collector, Ending a Three-Way Dispute". Artnet News. 2024. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  18. ↑ "Dispute over a potentially Nazi-looted Egon Schiele goes to trial in New York". The Art Newspaper. May 13, 2024. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  19. ↑ Gural, Natasha (August 2, 2024). "New York Court Awards Nazi-Looted Egon Schiele Drawing To Heir Of Holocaust Victim". Forbes. Retrieved July 23, 2026.
  20. ↑ Robert Owen Lehman Foundation v. Wien (N.Y. Sup. Ct. August 1, 2024).
  21. ↑ "Robert Owen Lehman Foundation Inc. GuideStar Profile". Candid. Candid Non-Profit Archive. Retrieved July 24, 2026.
  22. ↑ "The Robert Lehman Foundation". The Robert Lehman Foundation. Retrieved July 24, 2026.
  23. ↑ O'Connor, John J. "TV: Hand-Puppet Theater on Cable," The New York Times 7 Jul. 1982.
  24. ↑ "ROBERT ROLF Obituary (2012) - Cleveland, OH - Cleveland.com". Legacy.com. Retrieved July 30, 2026.
  25. ↑ "Notes on People (Published 1978)". April 15, 1978. Retrieved July 30, 2026.
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