| Donald L. Bryant Jr. | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Other Names: | Don Bryant |
| Occupation: | Vineyard owner Art collector[1] |
| Alma Mater: | Denison University Washington University in St. Louis |
| Spouse: | Barbara Bryant (1982–2007) Bettina Sulser Bryant (2009) |
| Boards: | Formerly on the Board of Trustees of MoMA[2] |
Donald L. Bryant Junior (born 1942) is an American businessman, art collector, vineyard owner and philanthropist.[3] [4] [5] He is the chairman emeritus of The Bryant Group, a St. Louis–based wealth management firm. His Bryant Family Vineyards in Napa, California, produces some of the country's most highly-rated wines.[6]
Bryant graduated from Denison University in Ohio in 1964, and from the Washington University School of Law in 1967.[7]
He is owner of Bryant Family Vineyard, a boutique winery in Napa, California, and The Bryant Group, an executive compensation and wealth management firm in St. Louis, Missouri.[4] [8] [9] As a vintner, he purchased his first vineyard in the late 1980s and initially replanted it entirely with cabernet sauvignon vines to both reflect the terroir of California and the traditions from Bordeaux.[7]
Bryant moved to London for a year when he was 51 in order to study art history. He toured 47 different museums and employed a curator from Tate Museum to teach him about twentieth century art. He later became a trustee of the Tate;[7] as well as being formerly on the Board of Trustees of MoMA in New York.[1] [2] He has several times been named among the world's top 200 collectors by ARTnews magazine.[10] The Bryant collection includes works by Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Alberto Giacometti, Jean Dubuffet, Robert Rauschenberg, Ellsworth Kelly, and others.[10] An Andy Warhol portrait of Marlon Brando, purchased by Bryant for $5 million just a decade before, was sold by Bryant in 2013 for $23.7 million.[10]
In 1999, Bryant purchased Christopher Wool's painting Apocalypse Now, but sold it two years later to Christie's chairman François Pinault, allegedly because his wife could not live with a work that said "SELL THE HOUSE SELL THE CAR SELL THE KIDS".[11]
Bryant's marriage to Barbara Bryant ended in divorce in 2007.[5] The couple had three children.[5] [12] In April 2009, he married Bettina Sulser Bryant, an art consultant and former ballet dancer, with the couple reportedly living in New York.[6] [13]