Eli Broad. Photo by Nancy Pastor.
Eli Broad, a towering figure in the art world as a billionaire collector, philanthropist, and museum founder, died late last month, leaving a big void in the cultural landscape.
In the wake of his death, Artnet News asked some of the artists, dealers, and art-museum professionals who knew him best to share their memories of the entrepreneur-turned-collector.
Jenny Holzer, artist
Eli helped me various times. Once we walked the Potomac watching Teddy Roosevelt and JFK quotes projected from the Kennedy Center onto Roosevelt Island. The sentences were about how living in nature and in society at large could and must be better. Eli imagined and realized much that is better.
Los Angeles Philanthropist Eli Broad Has Died
Eli Broad gave billions both personally and through his foundations.
Eli Broad, the respected and sometimes controversial Los Angeles philanthropist, died on Friday. He was 87. Known for being generous but also sharp-elbowed in his philanthropy, Broad and his wife, Edythe, gave nearly $2.5 billion from 2000 to 2013 to their Broad Foundations and other nonprofits, according to a Chronicle tally. In recent years, the couple gave significant sums to charity through their nearly $2 billion Broad Foundations, which houses the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Broad Art Foundation .
Broad built what is now a nearly $7 billion fortune through his KB Home homebuilding company and SunAmerica, a financial-services company that he sold to AIG for $18 billion in 1998. He then went on to devote most of his time to the couple’s philanthropy, giving primarily to education, science, and the arts.
Caltech Mourns the Loss of Eli Broad, 1933–2021 May 01, 2021
Eli Broad, founder of SunAmerica Inc. and KB Home, former member of the Caltech Board of Trustees, and a Life Member of the Caltech community passed away on April 30, 2021. He was 87 years old.
An entrepreneur, civic leader, and philanthropist who earned distinction as a patron of Los Angeles, Broad was an influential advocate for and generous benefactor of life sciences research, public education, and the arts. Throughout his life, he worked to create and foster new businesses, education organizations, scientific research institutions, and museums.
At Caltech, Broad s commitment was most evident through his enduring leadership on the Caltech Board of Trustees and his longstanding and continued investments in the Institute. In partnership with his wife Edythe, Broad donated more than $40 million to the biological sciences at Caltech through the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. Their generosity helped to establ
Selling SunAmerica allowed Broad to focus on philanthropy. The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation was founded in 1999, with an endowment that eventually topped $2 billion. Over the years, the foundation invested more than $600 million in public education in the Southland and in cities including Boston, New York, Chicago, Denver and Detroit.
The Broad Prize for Urban Education continues to honor school districts for academic performance, and has provided $16 million in scholarships to more than 1,200 students.
Broad was also dedicated to scientific and medical research, as well as the arts, supporting scientists, museums and public schools across the country. An avid collector, The Broad museum in downtown Los Angeles houses the Broads collection of more than 2,000 artworks.
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Eli Broad made his billions building homes, and then he used that wealth and the considerable collection of world-class modern art he assembled with his wife to shape the city around him.
Dogged, determined and often unyielding, he helped push and prod majestic institutions such as Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Museum of Contemporary Art into existence, and then, that done, he created his own namesake museum in the heart of Los Angeles.
With a fortune estimated by Forbes at $6.9 billion, the New York native who made California his home more than 50 years ago flourished in the home construction and insurance industries before directing his attention and fortune toward an array of ambitious civic projects, often setting the agenda for what was to come in L.A.