About John Hay Whitney
John Hay Whitney (August 17, 1904 – February 8, 1982) was an American venture capitalist, sportsman, philanthropist, newspaper publisher, film producer and diplomat who served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, and president of the Museum of Modern Art. Born in 1904 to Payne Whitney and Helen Hay Whitney, Whitney was a member of the wealthy and prominent Whitney family, longstanding fixtures of New York City and New England society. After attending Groton School and Yale College, where he was an oarsman, he inherited a large fortune from his father, making him one of the wealthiest people in the United States. In 1929, he participated in a hostile takeover of Lee, Higginson & Co. with Langbourne Willliams, rising to the position of chairman of the board at just 29 years old. In 1946, after serving in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, he founded J. H. Whitney & Company, the oldest venture capital firm in the United States and the origin of the term venture capital. By the 1970s, he was one of the wealthiest men in the world. Whitney was an influential figure in New York City politics and the politics of the Republican Party. As a moderate internationalist, Whitney was an early supporter of Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidential campaigns, and in 1957, Eisenhower appointed him United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, a position which had been held by his grandfather and namesake, John Hay. While ambassador, Whitney improved relations between the two countries in the wake of the Suez Crisis and purchased the New York Herald Tribune. Through the Tribune, he was influential in the election of John Lindsay as mayor of New York City in 1965. Whitney was a skilled polo player and raised thoroughbred racing horses, which won him the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1929 and 1930 and were frequent entrants in the Kentucky Derby. He was a patron of the arts, financing several Broadway productions and films, including two Academy Award for Best Picture, Gone with the Wind (1939) and Rebecca (1940). He was an early supporter of Fred Astaire, his longtime friend, and helped secure Astaire his first major film contract with RKO Pictures. His large art collection included famous works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Edward Hopper, Henri Matisse, James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, William Blake and Vincent van Gogh. Works from his collection have been exhibited at the Tate Gallery, the National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Yale University Art Gallery.
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