Top 200 Collectors

Highlights from the personal collection of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis include Louis XIV furniture and paintings by Jean Renoir and Claude Monet. That is to say, the couple takes their art seriously. They also run the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Foundation, which since 1985 has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to arts and health organizations and related causes. Henry is a cofounder of the private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, a global investment enterprise. In 2018 Forbes valued his net worth at  $5.8 billion, making him the 365th richest person in the world at the time. Marie-Josée is an economist who has served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and presides over the Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music—one of the world’s most prestigious awards for emerging composers. She was named president of the Museum of Modern Art board of trustees in 2005 and became president emerita in 2018. 

The Kravises’ charitable efforts have been well-lauded. In 2006 they established the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Nonprofit Leadership, a designation that celebrates individuals for their extraordinary patronage (and is administered by Marie-Josee’s alma mater, Claremont McKenna College). Henry chairs Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, a free eight-year program dedicated to providing low-income youth with academic support. Together they have donated $15 million to the Mount Sinai Medical Center to establish the Center for Cardiovascular Health. Henry co-chaired the Partnership for New York City with fellow ARTnews Top 200 collector Jerry I. Speyer. In 2019, the Kravises were awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy for their outstanding contributions to society at large.