A Visit to The Broad
I first heard of Eli Broad working in D.C. for @americans4arts in the policy + research department. This mysterious wealthy person and his wife had a massive private art collection they were going to create a museum from. Some 15 years later, @thebroadmuseum is open in DTLA with free tickets to see one of the greatest private art collections finally made available to the public.
The stories behind their collection are bananas. Stuff like, “we were in NYC and casually introduced to this young artist. So we bought his work. That artist was Basquiat.”
Bananas.
Eli Broad was an entrepreneur and philanthropist who is the only person to found two Fortune 500 companies in different industries, SunAmerica Inc. and KB Home, formerly Kaufman and Broad Home Corporation, and who co-founded with his wife Edythe the contemporary art museum, The Broad.
The Broad is home to nearly 2,000 works in the Broad collection by more than 200 artists, and is one of the world’s leading collections of postwar and contemporary art. The collection features in-depth holdings of influential contemporary artists such as Mickalene Thomas, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mark Bradford, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Yayoi Kusama, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Takashi Murakami, Cindy Sherman, and more, plus an ever-growing representation of younger artists.
The Broad Foundations, which include The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and The Broad Art Foundation, have assets of $3 billion. The Broad Art Foundation has provided almost 600 museums and university galleries worldwide with more than 8,800 loans of artwork since 1984.
The Broad had me at "free admission" and drew me in as a frequent visitor with its glimpses into the
collection visible in the cutout staircases show casing the stacks of artwork to be revealed over time as works rotate through the galleries.
As you exit the building, you can see Eli Broad’s imprint is all over the Los Angeles cultural landscape. Back in 1996, Broad helped then-Mayor Richard Riordan fundraise to build the to build the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, just across the street from the museum.
Mr. Broad died at the age of 87 on April 30, 2021.
Jeff Koons
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