The American arts philanthropist Agnes Gund has died, aged 87. Gund was a leading figure in the art world who was widely celebrated for her significant contributions to cultural institutions and her efforts to use art as vessel for social change, including in education and criminal justice reform. Gund’s death was first reported by The New York Times, which did not state a cause of death. She is survived by four children.
Gund was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1938. Her father, George Gund II, was a banker and philanthropist, and her mother, Jessica Roesler, instilled Gund with an appreciation for art and culture from an early age. Gund credited her exposure to art, including frequent visits to the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), as foundational experiences that shaped her lifelong work.
“Agnes Gund was a tireless advocate for art and artists, and she was a cherished friend throughout my years at the Getty, the Morgan Library and the Cleveland Museum of Art," says the director of the CMA, William Griswold, in a statement. "As a proud Cleveland native and a CMA Trustee, she helped transform the museum and had a profound impact on our contemporary-art collection. Her legacy will inspire generations to come.”
Gund attended the prestigious Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut, and in 2019 co-chaired a Sotheby’s auction to support the school, selling Carmen Herrera’s painting Blanco y Verde (1966‑67) for a record $2.9m. Gund earned a degree in history from Smith College in 1960 and received a masters degree in art history in 1962 from Harvard University through its Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where she worked closely with the Fogg Art Museum.
Gund joined the board of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in 1976, marking the beginning of a five-decade relationship with the museum. She served as its president from 1991 to 2002 and helped expand the museum’s educational programmes and increase its commitment to accessibility and diversity. During her tenure, she notably pushed for the acquisition of works by women and artists of colour, who remained underrepresented in the collection.
Gund had an instrumental role in helping raise funds for MoMA’s $858m expansion, which was designed by the Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi and completed in 2004. After stepping down as president, she became president emerita of MoMA in 2005 and held the title until her death. Over her lifetime, she donated around 100 works to MoMA, including pieces by Philip Guston, Eva Hesse, Richard Serra and others. Gund additionally helped oversee the launch of MoMA PS1 in Queens, which became formally affiliated with MoMA in 2000 following a merger with the PS1 Contemporary Art Center.
“Aggie’s impact on our museums is immeasurable,” Christophe Cherix, MoMA’s director, said in a statement provided to The Art Newspaper. “A dedicated and visionary leader, her generosity and passion helped shape MoMA and MoMA PS1 into the institutions they are today. She was a tireless champion of artists and a fierce believer in the power of art to change the world. Her warmth, spark and unwavering commitment to what is right will be profoundly missed. We are all deeply grateful for her incredible legacy and the countless ways she enriched our lives.”
Studio In A School artist-instructor Suzanne Stroebe with Agnes Gund, visiting artist Jeff Koons and students at PS145 on the Upper West Side Mindy Best
Gund’s philanthropic and cultural contributions were not limited to MoMA. She founded the Studio in a School in 1977 to provide art education to New York City public school children after budget cuts removed arts programmes. The non-profit organisation remains one Gund’s most enduring projects. It works to bring contemporary artists—including Jeff Koons, Julie Mehretu, Ursula von Rydingsvard and others—to classrooms. The programme has reached thousands of children since it was established.
In 2011, she launched the Gund Gallery at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, another education initiative to support student engagement with contemporary art and curatorial practices. The museum was launched with a seeded gift of 80 works from Gund’s collection, including pieces by Frank Stella, Kenneth Noland, Pablo Picasso and others. The museum began collecting work in 2015 and now holds nearly 500 works. It received accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums earlier this year.
Gund made headlines when she sold Roy Lichtenstein’s painting Masterpiece (1962) in 2017 to use the proceeds to establish the Art for Justice Fund, an initiative aimed at addressing the harms caused by mass incarceration in the US. The work was purchased by collector Steve Cohen for $165m, with Gund committing approximately $100m from the sale to launch the fund. The fund, which was conceived in partnership with the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, awarded grants to organisations and artists working with criminal justice reform until it shuttered in 2023.
In 2020, Gund was the subject of the documentary Aggie, which was directed by her daughter, Catherine Gund, and explored her activism and legacy in the arts. The film focused on Gund’s upbringing and the beginnings of her art collection and leadership in museums, and on her activism. Some notable figures who appear in the film include the film-maker John Waters, the Studio Museum in Harlem’s director Thelma Golden and the artist Glenn Ligon.
In 2022, Gund's foundation sold another work by Lichtenstein to support reproductive rights organisations.
In her lifetime, Gund amassed an extensive art collection including works by Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Mark Rothko, Agnes Martin, Robert Rauschenberg and others. But she emphasised that the collection was not a private asset and that she collected with the intention of placing the works in public institutions.
In a previous interview with The Art Newspaper, Gund said she bought her first major work, a sculpture by Henry Moore, in 1966. But she “started to have nightmares” about spending a large sum of money on the work, and it was then she decided to begin donating works to various museums to “assuage the guilt” of collecting.
Throughout her life, Gund served on various non-profits’ boards, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Council on Arts, the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies. She was a trustee at the CMA, a life trustee at the Morgan Library and Museum and an emeritus director at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland.
Gund was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton in 1997, the highest honour given to artists and arts patrons by the US government. She also received numerous honorary degrees and distinctions recognising her contributions and philanthropic work, including from Harvard University, Columbia University and Brown University.
