Reclusive philanthropist and property magnate Isaac Wakil — whose record-breaking donations transformed Sydney’s cultural and educational landscape — has died. He was aged 104.
Alongside his late wife, Susan, who predeceased him in 2018, Wakil was the driving force behind some of the largest philanthropic gifts in the state’s history.
This included a monumental donation to the Art Gallery of NSW that made its Naala Badu (Sydney Modern) expansion possible, as well as a $35 million gift to support construction of the Susan Wakil Health Building at the University of Sydney, at the time the largest donation in that institution’s history.
Born in Baghdad in 1922, Wakil arrived in Australia as a Holocaust survivor in 1949 later marrying Susan Reznik, a Romanian immigrant who had escaped Soviet occupation with an aunt.
The couple became highly successful entrepreneurs in the clothing trade. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, they amassed a vast property portfolio, quietly purchasing old brick warehouses across Pyrmont, Surry Hills, and Central Sydney.
The sale of these properties eventually funded the Susan and Isaac Wakil Foundation, 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; the arts through the Art Gallery of NSW and Opera Australia; and the Sydney Jewish Museum and educational scholarships.
The couple’s association with the Art Gallery of NSW dated to 1969, when they were introduced to Sir Robert Norman, the then-president of the gallery’s Captain Cook Wing expansion fund. The Wakils supported the fund’s ambitious $1 million goal and attended the celebratory dinner that same year.
Decades later, their support would scale unprecedented heights. In 2017, David Gonski, the 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 towards the $344 million construction of its Sydney Modern project.
“What you need is a big impetus,” Wakil told Gonski. “What do you have in mind? asked Gonski.
“How about $20 million?”. When Gonski enthusiastically accepted, Wakil added, “Maybe a bit more.”
That pledge culminated in a record-breaking $24 million contribution in 2018, providing the crucial early momentum required to turn the $344 million cultural project into a reality. “It was Isaac Wakil who got this going,” Gonski later noted at the sod-turning ceremony.
In recognition of their immense 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 pledge 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, that belief found lasting expression.”
Michael Rose, current president of the Art Gallery of NSW Board of Trustees, stated: “Isaac and Susan’s philanthropy propelled significant cultural infrastructure that elevated the Art Gallery, solidifying its place and that of Sydney on the international cultural map.”
The Wakils’ philanthropy also extended deeply into medical research and healthcare worker support, shaped in part by Susan Wakil’s long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
Their admiration for nurses led to their first gift to the University of Sydney, which established 12 nursing scholarships in perpetuity – scholarships which have supported dozens of students to date.
“Isaac held a deep belief in the people at the heart of healthcare,” university vice-chancellor, Professor Mark Scott, said.
“His commitment to medicine, health and – so importantly – nursing, has shaped a profession that is fundamental to every patient and family’s experience at such a vulnerable time in their lives. Thousands of our health students have already benefited from his generosity, and his legacy lives on in each scholarship recipient, as they graduate and go on to care for others with skill and compassion.”
They later supported the Susan Wakil Health Building (SWHB) bringing together nursing, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and allied health disciplines, and then the Isaac Wakil Biomedical Building.
Each were appointed Officers of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the community in 2017.
The couple had no children and are survived by a nephew, David Khedoori.
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