Full coverage: Eli Broad dies at 87

Eli Broad, a billionaire philanthropist and art collector, played a central role in building such Los Angeles institutions as Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Museum of Contemporary Art before building his own museum, the Broad.

Eli Broad’s death leaves a conspicuous void in both philanthropy and leadership in Los Angeles.

Eli Broad, philanthropist, art collector and builder, has died at 87.

Broad had a hand in a Renzo Piano building at LACMA, the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall and his own museum, by Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

Eli Broad stepped in when L.A. hit a low. He changed the city in ways he didn’t always expect.

He spent millions upon millions on schools, museums, stem-cell research centers. Sometimes, however, he treated his donations more like investments.

Eli Broad attracted his share of critics. He plowed ahead — donating, demanding, building, and L.A. is the better for it.

Jeff Koons says his first ‘Balloon Dog’ sculpture came into being only with the patience and pocketbook of Eli Broad, who died Friday at 87.

Mark Bradford won’t forget his “funny handshake.� Liz Diller called him “curmudgeonly generous.� Artists, architects and museum directors share their memories of Eli Broad.

LACMA, MOCA, the Hammer — museums had a complicated relationship with Eli Broad. Which partly explains why he ultimately built his own.

The nude in the silver frame calls no attention to herself amid the colors and splashes of Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg and other 20th century masters hanging in a well-lighted house beyond the pepper trees.

One of Eli Broad’s goals in building his namesake contemporary art museum in downtown Los Angeles was to help make a stretch of Grand Avenue a premier destination.

A parade of tiny paper sculptures, all re-creations of cultural institutions along Grand Avenue, glowed atop the dinner tables Thursday night at the black-tie gala for the new Broad museum — fitting as the evening was as much a celebration of downtown L.A., particularly the Grand Avenue corridor, as it was an inauguration of Eli and Edythe Broad’s long-awaited museum of contemporary art.

Eli and Edythe Broad wrapped the front of their new contemporary art museum with two 88-foot-long red ribbons to present it officially to the Los Angeles public on Friday.

In the skewed perspective of a longtime art writer, it felt like a historic moment.

To an important degree, Grand Avenue is Music Street. Not all of it, of course.

For this Grand Avenue project, we invited Justin Davidson, the architecture critic for New York magazine (and a frequent commentator on that famously dense city), to cast his eye on the evolving cultural density of Grand Avenue.

Critic’s Notebook: Broad Collection may borrow prestige from MOCA