David Rockefeller’s Gift to Museum of Modern Art Tops $228 Million

The late Standard Oil heir, David Rockefeller Sr., has left the Museum of Modern Art an estimated $103 million, adding to the $100 million pledge he made to the museum nearly 14 years ago, according to a Rockefeller family spokeswoman.

A banker and serious philanthropist, Rockefeller was the youngest child of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and the family’s modern-day patriarch until his death in 2017 at 101. His ties to MoMA ran deep. His mother, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, helped found the museum in the late 1920s, and he served on the museum’s board for nearly 70 years.

In 2005 he pledged $100 million to the museum, and in later years increased that amount by about $25 million. This latest addition, a residual contribution that came to the museum after a significant portion of his art collection was auctioned off last May at Christie’s, brings the payment of the pledge to a total of roughly $228.3 million. That amount is likely to increase somewhat over the next year as the remainder of his estate is settled, the family spokeswoman said.

College and Foundation Beneficiaries

His original pledge to MoMA was followed by several other huge pledges, including a $100 million commitment in 2005 to Rockefeller University, a biomedical research institution his family founded; and in 2008 a $100 million pledge to Harvard, his alma mater, primarily to pay for study-abroad programs for undergraduates, and internships and service and research programs in foreign countries.

In 2006 he announced a $225 million commitment to Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the foundation he established with his four brothers in 1940 to carry out much of the family’s charitable giving. The foundation announced last year that David Rockefeller’s bequest had inched up in value to $250 million, vaulting the foundation above the $1 billion mark.

Over the course of his life, Rockefeller gave at least $1 billion and landed on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of biggest donors five times over the last 14 years for gifts big and small to a variety of causes including arts and culture, environmental conservation, historic preservation, public and international affairs, and others.