Deceased February 22, 2017
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In Memory
John Bloomberg—skier, art collector and financier—died Feb. 22, 2017, of brain cancer.
The order in which his life’s occupations are listed is quite intentional. When asked once whether he was a Wall Street guy who happened to like skiing or a skier who happened to work on Wall Street, his answer was unhesitatingly the latter.
A chemistry major and ski team member at Amherst, John received an M.B.A. from Harvard. He worked for various financial firms in New York and participated in the founding of several small companies, retiring at age 45. He was an avid ski racer, winning the International Ski Federation gold medal for senior racers in 2014 at the age of 78.
He and Toni, his wife of 48 years, worked on assembling a collection of American and Impressionist art, including works by Pissarro, Bonnard and Monet. The Impressionist works will be donated to the San Diego Museum of Art.
In the 1990s John began losing his vision, but found help at the University of Utah’s Moran Eye Center, in gratitude for which he made many donations to the center, including the family’s collection of works by early Utah artists. The John and Toni Bloomberg Ophthalmology Library is named in his and his wife’s honor. For his philanthropic work, he was made an honorary alumnus of the University of Utah.
John served on boards too numerous to name, reflecting his interests in business, skiing, art and ophthalmology. At his death, he and his wife maintained homes in New York; Park City, Utah; and La Jolla, Calif.
Toni said of John, “[He] was the smartest, most interesting person I ever met, and the most fun companion.” In addition to Toni, John is survived by a son, “JC” Bloomberg, and a brother, Ed Bloomberg.
Bob Shoenberg ’57