David Lloyd Kreeger

David L. Kreeger earned a law degree from Harvard in 1932 and, by 1934, was a senior attorney with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He served as prime attorney at the Department of the Interior from 1935–41, then became a special assistant to the attorney general. In 1948, he purchased a tiny, privately-owned insurance company—Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO). As his fortunes rose from the growth of GEICO, he was able to purchase art that he could only previously enjoy as reproductions. From an initial purchase of a Monet and a Renoir grew an extraordinary collection of 19th- and 20th-century art gracing his museum-scaled home. Kreeger, himself an accomplished violinist, often opened up his unique home to concerts by some of the world’s finest musicians. In the 1960s and 1970s, he used his business skills to rejuvenate some of Washington’s now major institutions including the National Symphony, Washington Opera, Arena Stage, and Corcoran Gallery of Art. In 1983, the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum named an exhibit in honor of him and his wife, Carmen. Kreeger died in November 1990. The Kreegers’ former residence is now home to the Kreeger Museum, a nonprofit t art museum that opened in 1994.