Collector’s Birthdate: b. 1944

Kravis is an American business man and is one of the co-founders of the private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. His estimated worth of $3 billion makes him one of the wealthiest art collectors in the world; he has been responsible for the buying and selling of such brands as Texaco, Gillette, Safeway, Playtex and a handful of others.

His wife, Marie-Josee Drounin, is president of the board of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He is also a member of the board of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. He and his wife are philanthropists and have donated tens of millions of dollars to various causes, such as Mount Sinai Medical Center, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and is an active donor with the Republican party. Currently, he is on the board of the Partnership for New York City, is a trustee of the Council of Foreign Relations in New York and is a member of New York’s Business Council. Other notable positions include co-chair of Columbia Business School’s Board of Overseers, chairman of New York’s Rockefeller University and is the creator of the New York City Investment Fund.