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Eli Broad, the billionaire entrepreneur turned philanthropist and art collector who played an outsized role in shaping the art and cultural scene of Los Angeles, has died at the age of 87, The Guardian reports.

Broad passed away at Cedars-Sinai medical centre in Los Angeles following a long illness, said Suzi Emmerling, a spokeswoman for the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.

An accountant by trade who made his fortune in real estate and insurance, Broad championed and helped finance the Broad museum of contemporary art, which opened in 2015.

He also secured the art that would become the museum’s first major acquisition, the collection of Italian Count Guiseppe Biumo di Panza, now said to be worth $1bn, according to a biography of Broad on the foundation’s website.

Broad contributed heavily to the construction of the nearby Walt Disney concert hall as well as an art centre at the University of California, Los Angeles.

His donations also helped open the Broad Center at Yale School of Management, and the Broad Institute, a genomic medicine research center created in partnership with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“As a businessman Eli saw around corners, as a philanthropist he saw the problems in the world and tried to fix them, as a citizen he saw the possibility in our shared community, and as a husband, father and friend he saw the potential in each of us,” Gerun Riley, president of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, said in a statement.

Broad is survived by Edythe and his two sons, Jeffrey and Gary.