Sara Mary Barnes Roby (1907 - 1986), born into a wealthy family in Pittsburgh, and herself a painter, believed that the best way to support the visual arts was to acquire and exhibit the works of living artists. To this end, she established the Sara Roby Foundation and began collecting American art in the mid-1950s. While the collection is strong in the work of realist painters like Reginald Marsh, Phillip Evergood, and Edward Hopper, Roby also collected abstract works by artists such as Stuart Davis, Louise Nevelson, and Arthur Dove. At this website, view an exhibition slide show by decade of acquisition, or browse by artist's name. There is also an exhibition checklist of the 70 contributed artworks. In conjunction with the exhibition, a 148-page catalog, Modern American Realism: The Sara Roby Foundation Collection, by Virginia M. Mecklenburg, has been published.