Alexandre Paul Rosenberg

New York Times Archives:

Alexandre P. Rosenberg, founding president of the Art Dealers Association of America and for many years a prominent art dealer in New York, died of a heart attack in London on Friday. He was 66 years old.

He was the son of Paul Rosenberg, a key figure in the Parisian art world in the first half of the century. Mr. Rosenberg, who came to the United States after World War II, bore one of the great names in the European art world. Founded in 1878, Paul Rosenberg & Company was long one of the two or three most important galleries for the major masters of the School of Paris.

After establishing himself on East 57th Street, Mr. Rosenberg moved his gallery to a house at 20 East 79th Street that had been owned by Chester Dale, a celebrated collector. He remained there the rest of his life.

He won general respect with shows that ranged from Cezanne and Picasso by way of Renaissance bronzes to American modernists (Karl Knaths, above all), and from Ingres in American Collections to contemporaries from England (Graham Sutherland) and Italy (Giacomo Manzu).

He made a second reputation as a collector of early printed books, many of which were shown at the Pierpont Morgan Library. An archetypal scholar-dealer, he read, ruminated and wrote. Ever skeptical of the mainline scholarly approach, he once said that connoisseurship must assert its right to shake off the abrasive tyranny of documents. Last of a Type

Thanks to this combination of qualities and to the integrity that marked all his dealing, he was the natural choice as first president of the Art Dealers Association of America when it was founded in 1962. He held office until 1964 and served again from 1976 to 1978. Eugene Victor Thaw, his longtime colleague in the association, said yesterday that he was the last of a certain type of specifically French scholar-dealer, with a European culture based on Latin and Greek.

He added, He helped to create a vital art market in this country, and there is no one quite like him left.

Mr. Rosenberg was born in Paris on March 8, 1921, the son of Paul and Marguerite Rosenberg. He attended the Sorbonne, enlisted in the French Army at the age of 18 and went to England at the time of the fall of France in 1940.

During the war, Mr. Rosenberg served with the French 2d Armored Division in England, in Africa and in the invasion of Europe. He died during a visit to London for a reunion of survivors of the division, during which they were received by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Mr. Rosenberg is survived by his wife, Elaine, and by two daughters, Elizabeth Clark and Marianne Halperin.