Top 200 Collectors

Mitzi and Warren Eisenberg, who have been collecting modern and contemporary art since the early 1990s, are major players behind the New Museum in New York. Mitzi has been a trustee of the institution since 2003, and is currently the board’s vice president. And together the couple are listed as benefactors. Warren is the cofounder, with Leonard Feinstein, of the home-goods chain Bed Bath & Beyond. Along with Feinstein and his wife Susan, the Eisenbergs donated $7 million to the New Museum’s building project on the Bowery in Lower Manhattan in 2005. “The New Museum’s dedication to contemporary art and artists is unparalleled, and the decision to work with the cutting edge architectural firm SANAA reflects the museum’s mission,” Mitzi said in a statement at the time. “It’s important that we continue to find ways to challenge ourselves and the New Museum has a longstanding history of doing just that.” 

The Eisenberg’s son Martin and his wife Rebecca also get involved with artists at the beginning of their careers and collect their work as they progress. That way, they told Collector Space, “we can grow with them and we can honestly say that we were a part of the history.” Their eye for artists of the moment has resulted in a collection that features work by figures like Kai Althoff, Charline von Heyl, Peter Doig, Nicole Eisenman, Mark Grotjahn, Wade Guyton, David Hammons, Mary Heilmann, Rashid Johnson, Elizabeth Peyton, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and many more. A 2005 New Yorker article noted that the Eisenbergs keep a low profile—“although Liz Smith once noted that Mitzi, ‘a charming lady from New Jersey,’ had, at a charity auction, bid fifteen thousand dollars for a luncheon with Bette Midler.”