Two of the most influential art patrons in New York, Leonard Lauder and Agnes Gund, have died this year, and the New York Times both extols their largess and asks who will fill their shoes. Lauder, known for his record-setting $131 million donation to the Whitney Museum of American Art and a $1 billion cubist art gift to the Met, and Gund, celebrated for her advocacy of female artists and artists of color and donations to the Museum of Modern Art, were considered "all-in-one philanthropists," explains former Whitney chief Adam D. Weinberg. "They could open doors, they could bring people together, they would give money, they would give art. It takes three different board members to contribute what they could."
The story is written against a backdrop of a funding decline: The Times cites a recent study that found individual donations to arts institutions have dropped by more than 30% in a single year, while corporate and government support have seen drops in that ballpark. Many of the remaining major donors cited by the Times, such as Michael Bloomberg and David Geffen, are themselves in their 70s or 80s, with few younger philanthropists emerging at the same scale (though the Times does flag up-and-comers in their 40s like Sarah Arison and Anne-Cecilie Engell Speyer).
But experts say it takes years to build the kind of legacy that Lauder and Gund established. ARTnews reports that Gund helped "transform MoMA into the behemoth it is today," while Hyperallergic notes Lauder helped the Whitney "acquire hundreds of works of art (760 of which he personally gifted)." As the chairman of the High Line puts it, "Aggie Gund and Leonard Lauder were giants, and I don't see giants behind them. But I see deeply engaged people who care a lot about these organizations who are determined to grow the bases of support, and that gives me hope."
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