SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.- Philanthropist and art collector Phyllis Wattis died at age 97 in San Francisco. She contributed more than $150 million to cultural institutions in California, according to The New York Times. She was very influential in the financing of the collection for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in the 1990’s. She aided in the museum’s acquisition of works by artists such as Magritte, Mondrian, Warhol and Eva Hesse, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Rauschenberg and Wayne Thiebaud.

Harry S. Parker III, Director of the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco stated, "Phyllis Wattis is not only a philanthropist but a visionary. She has encouraged us to be farsighted and creative in thinking of the de Young’s position as the best museum of American art on the West Coast. We need to build our 20th-century collection to equal the holdings of 18th- and 19th-century art that the Rockefellers so generously provided. This important work by David Smith will be a cornerstone of the American art collection in the new de Young."