Agnes Gund, one of the most prominent art patrons in the United States, died on September 18th at 87. Her daughter Catherine confirmed her death to the New York Times.
Gund’s approach to collecting and philanthropy reshaped the American art world, earning her a National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton in 1997. Her collection included works by Mark Rothko, Ellsworth Kelly, and Frank Stella, among numerous other artists, many of whom she befriended.
Gund’s influence was particularly strong at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which she began supporting in 1967 as a member of its International Council. She subsequently became a trustee of the museum in 1976 and served as the board’s president from 1991 to 2002. During that time, she helped propel MoMA into the 21st century, notably through her fundraising efforts for its sweeping $858 million expansion in 2004.
She also played a pivotal role in revitalizing MoMA PS1, the Queens contemporary art center that became formally affiliated with MoMA in 1999. Gund remained on the museum’s board until her death, and the museum’s directorship, currently held by Connie Butler, bears her name in recognition of her impact.
Born in 1938 in Cleveland to George Gund II, a banker and real estate investor, Gund studied history at Connecticut College. She later returned to school, earning a master’s degree in art history from Harvard in 1980.
Throughout her life, Gund was an advocate for arts education and social justice. In 1977, budget cuts pulled funding from art education programs in public schools across New York. In response, she founded Studio in a School, a nonprofit organization supporting youth arts education that still operates today.
Gund made headlines in 2017, when she sold Roy Lichtenstein’s Masterpiece (1962) to finance the launch of the Art for Justice Fund, an initiative aimed at addressing the harms of mass incarceration in the United States. The painting was purchased by collector Steve Cohen for $165 million, and Gund directed roughly $100 million of the proceeds into the new fund. This was documented in the 2020 film Aggie, directed and produced by Gund’s daughter.
In 2023, Gund sold another Lichtenstein painting, Mirror #5 (1970), for $3.1 million. She donated the proceeds to organizations supporting reproductive rights in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Gund promised almost her entire collection to museums, according to the Times. During her life, she often made donations to the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
