Roberta Lieberman, co-founder and co-owner of Zolla/Lieberman Gallery Inc., helped spur the growth of art galleries in the River North area of Chicago with her fearless risk-taking.
Mrs. Lieberman, 78, died of breast cancer Friday, Feb. 20, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago after a two-year battle with the illness.
“She was a woman with a tremendous sense of beauty and great personal style,” said her son, William, who worked with his mother for 24 years and now runs the gallery at 325 W. Huron St. “She had a magical gaze in her eye that made you believe in the possibility of art.”
A former interior designer, Mrs. Lieberman started her career promoting and selling art in her 50s. Her gallery, which opened in 1976, became an important location in the Midwest for showing the work of noted modern artists–Andy Warhol and Frank Stella, among them–as well as providing exposure for emerging talents, such as Deborah Butterfield. The activity around the gallery became a magnet that drew other galleries into the area over the years.
Mrs. Lieberman was born in Chicago and grew up in Rogers Park. Except for the four years she spent majoring in art at the University of Wisconsin, Mrs. Lieberman was a lifelong resident of the Chicago area, with many of her later years spent in Streeterville.
She became seriously interested in fine arts in the early 1960s, when she took a course at the University of Chicago taught by Harry Bouras, the late artist and cultural critic and host of the WFMT radio program “Critic’s Choice.”
When Mrs. Lieberman and her business partner, Robert Zolla, opened their gallery, they were taking a gamble. Then mainly a manufacturing and warehouse area, River North was desolate at night. There were no other galleries around, and Chicago’s galleries were concentrated along Michigan Avenue.
But Mrs. Lieberman never flinched in the face of a challenge, said her daughter, Susan.
“She often said that people don’t get lucky–they create their own luck,” said her daughter.
After opening the gallery, Mrs. Lieberman went to New York and persuaded Leo Castelli, the art dealer representing Warhol, Stella and other leading artists, to let her display their work in Chicago.
To lure people to the gallery, Mrs. Lieberman offered cab rides to the converted loft and lunch.
Mrs. Lieberman is also survived by her husband, Richard, and three grandchildren.
Services will begin at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Chicago Sinai Congregation, 15 W. Delaware Pl., Chicago.
