Anna Bing Arnold

Anna Bing Arnold (died 2003, also known as Anna Kostant) was an American philanthropist, arts patron, and former Broadway actress who was one of the principal early benefactors of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). She contributed $1 million to the campaign to build LACMA's original Wilshire Boulevard campus and financed the museum's Bing Theater, named in memory of her first husband, New York real-estate developer Leo S. Bing.

Arnold joined LACMA's board in 1965 and became a longtime supporter of acquisitions across several departments. Museum staff later referred to her as "LACMA's angel" because of her willingness to finance works for which the museum lacked another donor.

Before becoming known as a philanthropist, Arnold worked as a stage actress under the name Anna Kostant. Broadway records credit Kostant with appearances in six productions between 1926 and 1932, including Howdy, King, The Trial of Mary Dugan, Faust, Elmer Rice's Pulitzer Prize-winning Street Scene, and Counsellor-at-Law. In the original 1929 Broadway production of Street Scene, she played Shirley Kaplan, and in Counsellor-at-Law she appeared as Regina Gordon alongside Paul Muni.

Her acquisition support was not restricted to a single field. Over several decades, works acquired through her gifts entered LACMA's collections of ancient Near Eastern, Greek and Roman, European, Asian, African, and modern art. The Los Angeles Times described the Ahmanson Foundation and Arnold in 1985 as LACMA supporters who were "in for the long haul," contrasting their sustained support with collectors whose relationships with the museum had ended.

The Los Angeles Times later identified Arnold, together with Camilla Chandler Frost, as one of the women whose patronage was particularly important in building LACMA's collection during the institution's formative decades. By 2015, LACMA was spending approximately $1 million annually on arts curriculum materials and artist-led workshops in public schools through programs supported by the endowment. Arnold had earlier taught parent-education classes in Los Angeles, and Stanford later connected her interest in early childhood education with her support for the school.

At the California Institute of Technology, Arnold and Peter Bing endowed the Bing Professorship in Behavioral Biology in 1970. She also supported the University of Southern California and California State University, Los Angeles, where the Anna Bing Arnold Children's Center bears her name.

Personal life Her first husband was New York real-estate developer Leo S. Bing, a partner in the family real-estate business Bing & Bing. Bing was nearly 30 years her senior. The couple had one son, Peter S. Bing, and frequently vacationed in California before moving there from New York. Leo Bing died before construction of LACMA's Wilshire Boulevard campus; Arnold subsequently financed the museum's Bing Theater in his memory.

After Bing's death, she married Aerol Arnold, a professor of English at the University of Southern California and a Shakespeare scholar. Arnold later endowed the Aerol Arnold Chair in English at USC in his memory, as well as a chair bearing Leo Bing's name. Both husbands predeceased her.

Her son, Peter Bing, became a physician, public-health official, real-estate executive and philanthropist. He worked on health policy during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and later became a major benefactor and trustee of Stanford University. Anna Bing Arnold and her son jointly helped establish Stanford's Bing Nursery School in the 1960s.

Through Peter, Arnold was the grandmother of film producer, businessman and political donor Steve Bing. Steve Bing inherited part of the Bing family real-estate fortune and became known as a film financier and philanthropist as well as for his highly publicized personal life. Steve Bing was the father of Damian Hurley, his son with actress Elizabeth Hurley, and Kira Bonder.

Death and legacy

Arnold died in 2003. In addition to her LACMA education endowment, her estate left $4 million to the City of Los Angeles to acquire land for playgrounds and parks in low-income neighborhoods. The city ultimately used the bequest to create small parks in Panorama City, Historic Filipinotown, and South Los Angeles.

The Bing Theater remained one of the best-known physical reminders of Arnold's role in LACMA's creation. It hosted film screenings, concerts, lectures, and other public programs for more than five decades. The Leo S. Bing Center was demolished in April 2020 along with other buildings of LACMA's original 1965 campus as construction began on the museum's new David Geffen Galleries.

Although the theater no longer exists, works acquired with Arnold's support remain in LACMA's collection, including the group of monumental Assyrian palace reliefs, which were displayed in the inaugural presentation at the Geffen Galleries in 2026. Her posthumous education endowment also continued her influence on the museum's programs beyond its physical campus.