David Geffen donates $100M for MoMA renovation

Media baron David Geffen cut a giant check this week – figuratively, we assume – to fund part of the Museum of Modern Art’s expansion of its Midtown space.

The Geffen Records founder and DreamWorks SKG head donated $100 million to the museum, which is planning a major renovation, plus a roughly 50,000-square-foot expansion, the largest single donation yet to the effort, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The museum plans to christen three floors of new gallery space the David Geffen Galleries in his honor.

The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts named a hall after Geffen as well, after he gave it $100 million last year.

MoMA bought the property adjacent to Its West 53rd Street location, the former home of the American Folk Art Museum, for $32.1 million in 2011. The museum is expanding its lobby, and creating theaters, a library, classrooms and gardens, along with the new gallery spaces.

The project, slated to cost about $440 million total, is set to be complete around 2019-2020. MoMA’s fundraising campaign – the cash from which will also fund the museum’s operations and top up its endowment – has brought in about $650 million over the last two years. [WSJ] – Ariel Stulberg