He was a regular at some of the most prestigious and glamorous events on New York’s cultural calendar, from gala performances at the Metropolitan Opera to black-tie soirees for American Ballet Theater and the Frick Collection.
And as Matthew Christopher Pietras began donating to arts organizations, he found himself eagerly courted by institutions that are desperate to find new generations of young patrons. He was invited to join the board of the Met Opera and began sponsoring galas. When the Frick Collection reopened this year after a $220 million renovation, his name had been inscribed onto a wall alongside those of other donors, and a staff position had been named for him.
Then, this May, everything went terribly awry.
Mr. Pietras, who had worked for the Soros family and described himself to people as a financial manager, arranged to transfer a $10 million donation to the Met Opera on May 28. That evening, he attended American Ballet Theater’s spring gala. The next morning, a Soros representative reached out to the Met and told the company that the money actually belonged to a member of the Soros family and not to Mr. Pietras, according to a Met official with knowledge of the institution’s actions.
The Met reached out to Mr. Pietras for an explanation, and he briefly responded that he would look into the issue, but the organization did not hear from him again. The next day, just before noon on May 30, the police were called to his apartment near Madison Square Park, where Mr. Pietras, 40, was found dead.
Mr. Pietras’s sudden death, which is still under investigation by the medical examiner, has forced the Met and the Frick to contend with a swirl of questions about his philanthropy.
For the Met Opera, which returned the $10 million after Mr. Pietras’s death, the bizarre turn of events created a real financial problem at a moment when credit ratings agencies have expressed concern about its reliance on large draws from its endowment fund. With an unexpected shortfall in its cash flow, the Met got permission from the executive committee of its board in June to draw another $5 million from its endowment to help make up the missing funds, according to the Met official. Several committee members offered to make up the remaining $5 million that the company had been counting on.
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The post After a Young Arts Patron’s Donation Did Not Clear, He Was Found Dead appeared first on New York Times.
