Lauder gives $131 million to the Whitney

Cosmetics magnate Leonard A. Lauder has made the biggest gift the Whitney Museum has ever received.

Lauder, chairman of the museum board and of Estee Lauder Companies, is contributing $131 million to the Whitney, with most of the gift going to the art museum endowment.

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The Lauders rank as a first family of the New York art world. Leonard Lauder’s brother, Ronald S. Lauder, is chairman emeritus of the Museum of Modern Art and a co-founder of the Neue Galerie.

By jingling the coins in his pocket, Leonard Lauder may prompt other Whitney trustees to increase their support. Among the board’s many wealthy members:

· Wall Street financier Thomas H. Lee, who is also a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art. His wife, Ann Tenenbaum, is a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a member of the New York City Art Commission. The couple were also major benefactors of the Dia:Beacon, on the Hudson north of New York City.

· Wilbur Ross, who is in the midst of a $1.1 billion deal to buy H&R Block’s Option One mortgage servicing business

· Chicago developer Neil G. Bluhm, who is also a trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago

· Billionaire Steven Roth, chairman of Vornado Realty

· Eric Mindich, chief of the Eton Park hedge fund

· Norton Utilities creator Peter Norton, who also sits on the board of the Museum of Modern Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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