Emily and Jerry Spiegel

Jerome E. "Jerry" Spiegel was born in Brooklyn, New York City on July 4, 1925.[1] His father died when he was three years old.[2] Much of his childhood was spent on his uncle's 115-acre potato farm in Smithtown, Long Island, New York.[2][3]

Emily Joy Rosenblatt was born on December 21, 1928, and died on February 16, 2009.[4] She was the daughter of Jacob H. Rosenblatt and Carrie Skloot Rosenblatt, who was an interior designer, and died on November 22, 2000, aged 94.[5]

In 1945, Jerome started his first company in Hicksville, building suburban housing for soldiers coming home from the Second World War, and by 1950 was building one home per day.[6] In 1952, he built the Nassau Farmers Market, Long Island's first indoor shopping center, and by 1971 was the largest individual owner of commercial and industrial real estate on Long Island.[6][3] He died on November 3, 2009.[7]

They collected post-war American and German painting and sculpture, and photography.[3]

They were "early champions " of artists including Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Christopher Wool and Anselm Kiefer.[8] They also collected works by photographers including Edward Steichen, Man Ray, Paul Outerbridge, Paul Strand and Diane Arbus.[8]

Each daughter received roughly half (by value) of their parents' collection and in May 2017 held rival sales, Pamela with Christie's, Lise with Sotheby's.[9] Lise only auctioned one work, Jean-Michel Basquiat's 1982 Untitled, which her parents had bought for $19,000 in 1984; it sold for $110.5 million to Japanese billionaire entrepreneur and art collector Yusaku Maezawa.[9]

In 1954, Emily Rosenblatt married Jerome Spiegel in Queens, New York City.[10]

They had two daughters, Pamela Sanders and Lise Spiegel Wilks, who have "a long-standing feud of unknown origin", and do not speak to each other.[9] Both sisters graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and are both married to men who are in real estate.[9]

Emily and Jerry Spiegel lived at 10 Broadlawn Avenue in Kings Point, Long Island, New York.[11][1] They both died in 2009.[9][12][13]

In 1953, they founded the Jerry and Emily Spiegel Family Foundation, which funded charitable, community and educational projects across Long Island.[14] The Foundation is responsible for the Jerry and Emily Spiegel Theater at Hofstra University, and a wing at Long Island Jewish Medical Center.[14]

In 2001, they gifted Andy Warhol's 1963 Silver Double Elvis to the Museum of Modern Art.[8] The gift was in honor of Kirk Varnedoe, friend to the Spiegels and chief curator of painting and sculpture there from 1988 to 2001.[8]