How the visionary philanthropist transformed Sydney’s cultural and medical landscape
Isaac Wakil, the reclusive philanthropist and landowner whose record-breaking donations transformed Sydney’s cultural and educational landscape, has died. He was 104 years old.
Alongside his late wife, Susan, who predeceased him in 2018, Wakil was the driving force behind some of the largest philanthropic donations in the state’s history.
This included a monumental donation to the Art Gallery of NSW, which enabled the expansion of Naala Badu (Sydney Modern), as well as a $35 million gift to support the construction of the Susan Wakil Health Building at the University of Sydney, at the time the largest donation in the institution’s history.
Born in Baghdad in 1922, Wakil came to Australia in 1949 as a Holocaust survivor and later married an aunt, Susan Reznik, a Romanian immigrant who had fled the Soviet occupation.
The couple became highly successful entrepreneurs in the clothing business. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, they amassed a large property portfolio by quietly purchasing former brick warehouses in Pyrmont, Surry Hills and Central Sydney.
The sale of these properties eventually funded the Susan and Isaac Wakil Foundation, which was established in 2014. The Foundation supports a wide range of causes, including health and medical research at the University of Sydney, St Vincent’s Hospital and the Sydney Biomedical Accelerator; arts through the Art Gallery of NSW and Opera Australia; and Sydney Jewish Museum and educational scholarships.
The couple’s relationship with the Art Gallery of NSW dates back to 1969, when they were introduced to Sir Robert Norman, then chairman of the gallery’s Captain Cook Wing expansion fund. The Wakil family supported the fund’s ambitious goal of $1 million and attended the celebratory dinner the same year.
Decades later their support would reach unprecedented levels. In 2017, David Gonski, then president of the Art Gallery of NSW Trust, received a call from Isaac Wakil asking about the progress of the gallery’s attempts to independently raise $100 million for the $344 million construction of the Sydney Modern project.
“What you need is a lot of momentum,” Wakil told Gonski. Gonski asked, “What’s on your mind?” he asked.
“How about $20 million?” When Gonski enthusiastically agreed, Wakil added: “Maybe a little more.”
This commitment resulted in a record-breaking $24 million contribution in 2018, providing the early momentum needed to make the $344 million cultural project a reality. “It was Isaac Wakil who started this,” Gonski said later at the land turning ceremony.
In recognition of their enormous generosity, Tsering Hannaford’s portrait of Susan Wakil hangs in the new wing known as Naala Badu, which also houses the Susan Wakil Pavilion and the Isaac Wakil Gallery.
This week Gonski paid tribute to the couple’s extraordinary impact: “Isaac and Susan Wakil were true visionaries who made Sydney a better and more generous place. I will never forget their extraordinary leadership promise in 2017…
“Their generosity was matched only by their humility and deep belief in the power of art to improve lives. Isaac and Susan believed that art and beauty were for everyone. Through the Foundation, this belief found lasting expression.”
Michael Rose, current chairman of the Art Gallery of NSW Trustees, said: “Isaac and Susan’s philanthropy has catalysed a significant cultural foundation that has elevated the Art Gallery, cementing its place, and Sydney’s, on the international cultural map.”
The Wakil family’s philanthropy also extends deeply into medical research and support of healthcare professionals, shaped in part by Susan Wakil’s long struggle with Parkinson’s disease.
Their admiration for nurses led them to make their first gift to the University of Sydney; This scholarship has established 12 permanent nursing scholarships that have supported dozens of students to date.
“Isaac had a deep belief in people at the heart of healthcare,” said University vice-chancellor Professor Mark Scott.
“Her dedication to medicine, health and, most importantly, nursing shaped a profession that is fundamental to every patient and family’s experience at such a sensitive time in their lives. Thousands of our healthcare students have already benefited from her generosity, and her legacy lives on in each scholarship recipient as they graduate and continue to care for others with skill and compassion.”
They later supported the Susan Wakil Health Building (SWHB) and subsequently the Isaac Wakil Biomedical Building, which brought together nursing, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and allied health disciplines..
They were each appointed Officers of the Order of Australia in 2017 for distinguished service to the community.
The couple had no children and were survived by their nephew, David Khedoori.
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