Ellie Broad, a billionaire businessman and art collector who played a key role in shaping the Los Angeles art and cultural scene, has died at the age of 87.
The businessman who built the house and made money in insurance happily spent it trying to make the city the cultural capital.
The business-minded collector funded the Broad Museum in LA and donated heavily to Yale, Harvard and MIT.
Eli Broad, Billionaire Philanthropist Who Helped Reshape Los Angeles, Dies at 87:
Eli Broad, a businessman and philanthropist whose great fortune, extensive art collection and passion for urban betterment helped reshape Los Angeles’ cultural landscape.
Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation spokeswoman Suzi Emmerling said Broad died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after a long illness. But she but did not specify the cause.
Sorry to hear of the passing of a Los Angeles icon, Eli Broad. Am honoured to have designed the Edythe and Eli Broad Studios at Cal Arts. Eli made things happen! pic.twitter.com/4DpA9wbxJh
— Jeffrey Daniels (@jdaniels88) May 1, 2021
Broad was born in 1933 in the Bronx, New York, and moved to Detroit with his family as a young man. It was in this Midwestern city that he began his career as a real estate developer, building the only family home in the suburbs.
He invested in an insurance company in the 1970s, renamed Sun America, and raised most of his business before selling the business for $18 billion in the mid-1990s. He and his wife, Edythe, moved to Los Angeles in 1963.
An accountant in business who made his future in real estate and insurance, Broad successfully supported and financed the Broad Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened in 2015.
According to Broad’s biography on the foundation’s website, he also preserved the art, which will become the museum’s first major acquisition, a collection of Italian Count Giuseppe Biumo di Panza, now valued at $1bn, on Broad’s website.
He also donated $50 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and led a fundraising campaign to finish the Walt Disney Concert Hall when the project sank.
According to an autobiography on the foundation’s website, Broad, a passionate art collector, took up philanthropy in 1999. He retired from the foundation in 2016.
Broad contributed significantly to the construction of the nearby Walt Disney Concert Hall, as well as an art centre at the University of California, Los Angeles.
His donations also helped open a Broad Center at the Yale School of Management, and a Genomic Medicine Research Center Broad Institute in partnership with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Working with city leaders and developers, Mr Broad helped create a far-reaching project to transform Grand Avenue into a cultural and urban centre in the neglected city of Los Angeles, which includes restaurants, hotels, Large parks and broadcasters were included.
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The Walt Disney Hall is next door, and the Museum of Modern Art is across the street.
Gary Riley, president of the Eli and Edhi Broad Foundation, said in a statement.
“As a businessman, Eli saw the world’s problems as a philanthropist and tried to solve them. As a citizen, he saw this possibility in our shared community, and as a husband, father and As friend, he saw his potential. Each of us.”
Broad is survived by Eddie and his two sons, Jeffrey and Gary.
