FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Prentice Art Communications
(212) 228-4048
Donor of the Day Celebration
hosted by Jeff Koons
New York, NY—Last night over 150 guests gathered at The Whitney Museum of American
Art for The Wall Street Journal's inaugural Donor of the
Day Celebration, hosted by world-renowned artist Jeff Koons, and presented by Harry Winston and Oscar
de la Renta. The black-tie cocktail reception and
seated dinner honored leaders in philanthropy who had been recently profiled in
The Wall Street Journal's Donor of the Day column, a feature which appears in
the Greater New York section and highlights individual giving across a wide
range of causes. Philanthropists previously featured in the Donor of the Day
column include: Bill & Melinda Gates, David H. Koch, Laurie Tisch, Henry Kravis, Wilbur Ross, Patricia Phelps de
Cisneros, Tommy Hilfiger and Hannah Kellogg.
Cocktails were served in the museum's outdoor terrace where Harry
Winston CEO Frédéric de Narp
and Oscar de la Renta CEO Alexander Bolen welcomed Donor of the Day honorees including Susan
Sarandon, Tina Santi Flaherty, Adam Neuhaus, Andrei Floroiu, Hillary and Ben Macklowe and collector Lawrence Benenson,
who, together with his brothers, donated several million dollars to Lincoln
Center for the Performing Arts in honor of his late father. Whitney curator Scott
Rothkopf excitedly spoke with guests about the
recently announced Koons retrospective that he has
been quietly working on for over a year, planned for 2014 and which will be the
last exhibition in the iconic Madison Avenue building. "This will be the first time a
single artist has ever taken over almost the entire museum," he explained to
guests like Daniel Boulud,
Glenn & Amanda Fuhrman and Alex & Bara Tisch.
Ruffian designers Claude Morais and Brian Wolk,
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and Michelle Harper admired the silent
auction items including a Harry
Winston watch; an edition artwork by Jeff Koons; a
Greater New York weekend from The Wall Street Journal and an Oscar de la Renta experience package that included tickets to the
designer's Fall 2013 show, a tour of his Manhattan atelier and a $5,000 gift
certificate. All proceeds from the silent auction benefited the host's and performer's
respective charities, The International Centre for Missing and Exploited
Children (ICMEC) and The Looking Out Foundation.
Several of
the party guests wore Oscar de la Renta including gallerist Jeanne
Greenberg Rohatyn, Eliza Bolen, Bettina
Prentice, photographer Claiborne
Swanson Frank, Alina Kohlem and models Julie
Henderson and Heidi Lindgren. Once seated, guests were
welcomed by The Wall Street Journal's Michael
Rooney who quoted Henry Ford by saying,
"The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do
more for the betterment of life." Koons then
described his own personal experiences in founding The Koons
Family Institute before introducing keynote speaker Ernie Allen of The International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC), who spoke
passionately about their mission to protect children around the world. Designer
John Varvatos,
a self described music junkie, led a standing ovation
after the three song performance of singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile, who previewed selections
from her new album Bear Creek, being
released on June 5th. After chants for an encore the singer did a
soulful acoustic rendition of Leonard
Cohen's Hallelujah to thundering applause.
