Robert W.
Wilson (philanthropist)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Warne Wilson (November 3, 1926 – December 23, 2013) was an American
hedge fund manager, philanthropist and art collector.
Wilson gained his under graduate
degree at Amherst College and his masters from the University of Michigan. He enrolled in and attended but not graduate from the
University of Michigan law school and then went to work as as a securities
analyst. He founded his own hedge fund Wilson & associates in 1969 and
retired in 1986. By 2000 he was worth an estimated $800 million dollars.
Wilson was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1926.[1]
According to Business Week he gave away over four hundred million dollars and
according others more than $600 million to environmental and preservation
organizations including the Nature Conservancy and the World Monuments Fund.[2]
The idea of "But for my money, it would be gone forever" appeals' he
once remarked.[3]
An avid art collector at the time of
Wilson had been on the board of trustees of the Whitney Museum of American Art
for over thirty years.[4]
His name surfaced during a dispute between John L. Stewart (with whom he had
formed an art partnership) and Stewart's former assistant Neil W. Stevenson
(who went onto to become an art dealer himself) and said "“John thinks
that Neil possesses some pieces of art that belong to us. And Neil thinks John
owes him some money. And I suspect both of those statements are true, and why
the matter can’t be settled is beyond me”.[5]
Wilson was passionate about criminal
justice reform, and was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union
for over four decades.[6]
Death
Wilson died on December 23, 2013 at
the age of 87, after leaping from the 16th floor of his apartment at The San Remo
on Central Park West in the New York City borough of Manhattan.[7][8]
He had suffered a stroke in the month of June and another in the month prior to
his suicide.[9]
Wilson was married for 35 years but
was unwed at the time of his death. He left no immediate survivors.
The entire wiki link on this individual can be found
at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Wilson_(philanthropist)
No comments:
Post a Comment