A Decade of Collecting:
An Overview of The Baruch College Collection

Sidney Mishkin and his wife, Jeanne       Sidney Mishkin - Class of '34

Sidney Mishkin, Class of '34
Leaves Gift to Baruch College

Sidney Mishkin, who was born in New York City in 1913, was the son of Russian immigrants. His father was a cutter in the garment industry. Sidney grew up in New York -- for a time on East 103rd Street -- and from an early age distinguished himself at school. He attended Townsend Harris High School, an institution so competitive that, as he later told his children, only the top two students in each elementary school could take the test to be admitted to it. With a love for numbers, he went on to the place we now know as Baruch -- the School of Business and Civic Administration of The College of the City of New York --studying partly at night and graduating in 1934.

Mr. Mishkin had a passion for accounting. Part of the family lore is that in one exam at the College he found a question that was incorrectly phrased and could not be answered. He brought it up with the professor, who insisted that he was wrong. He was right, though, and the test had to be changed.

In the Depression, Mr. Mishkin considered himself fortunate to have a job paying $35 a week. He worked as an accountant for B.J. Goldberger & Company, serving small companies and individuals, and rose to be a partner. One of his accounts was a maker of belting materials called Supply Manufacturing Company, owned in part by Hyman Silverstein, who had a daughter named Jeanne. She and Sidney were married on June 29, 1941, and celebrated their 50th anniversary together.

In 1944, at the age of 31, Sidney Mishkin was drafted. With his age, his weak eyesight, and his accounting expertise, he expected to get a desk assignment. He ended up in the infantry in Germany. Other G.l.'s called him Grandpa.

As Hyman Silverstein had health problems, Mr. Mishkin reluctantly gave up accounting and entered the family business. He took a company in trouble and turned it into a leader in its field. Much of the fortune that is benefiting Baruch came in these years.

In the 1950s Sidney's younger brother, Archie, also an accountant (Baruch '38), was living in Havana, the part owner of a tobacco plantation, He left Cuba and became treasurer of Bayuk Cigars, Inc., in Philadelphia, which made Phillies, Garcia y Vega, and Websters. With Archie's advice and cooperation, Sidney bought stock in Bayuk, and they took control of the company, Archie becoming president and Sidney chairman. Sidney was proud to be head of a company that made well--known products.

Sidney's son Joseph remembers his father as a "true product of the Depression" -- "He didn't have much of an ego. He was never comfortable spending money. He would never, ever buy anything he couldn't completely pay for -- he would never borrow. We would kid him about how old his suits were, and when they reached their bar mitzvah, I helped throw them out."

Mr. Mishkin was also a director of the Englewood National Bank & Trust Company and a trustee of Beth Israel Medical Center.

When he turned 55, Mr. Mishkin partly retired to Florida, working every other week and devoting himself to his family and friends. The ten works of art that he is giving to Baruch include Max Ernst's "Mother and Daughter," Barbara Hepworth's "Bimorphic," Marsden Hartley's "Mount Katahdin --Snowstorm," Alfred Henry Maurer's "Two Women" and "Girl in Grey," Ren6 Br6's "The Miracle Fishermen," Georges Mathieu's "Festival in Norwich," Irene Rice Pereira's "Affluent Surface," and untitled works by Alexander Calder and Sebastian Antonio Matta Echauren.

Mr. Mishkin's employer, partner, and friend B. J. Goldberger remembers him as "very ambitious, extremely bright, an expert accountant, a good tax man, a good family man, and a good friend."

© 2002 Sidney Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College