If someone loses his father at 10, goes to boarding school, graduates from Harvard with distinction, serves in Asia during World War II, inherits a lot of money, makes ambitious plans to contribute to society rather than fritter away a trust fund, reaches 97 and passes away, he can be sure he will be pilloried and ridiculed in the obituary columns.

Especially if he also:

Hartford was a potent threat to the elitist cultural establishment of the 1950s and 60s, who branded him a dilettante.  Since he possessed one of the largest fortunes in the US, it should be no surprise that, from time to time, he might act like it.  Perhaps he should have hired a better press agent.  He married four times—big deal.  Yet he avoided alcohol and played sports.  His yacht was named “Joseph Conrad”.  Perhaps if he had been a Trump, Murdoch or Sulzberger, and inherited a media or real estate empire, rather than the world’s largest grocery store chain, he would have been remembered better. But then, he would not have been as heroic.

Last week’s obits were scurrilous, focusing on his financial losses, as well as alleged drug use when he was in his sixties.  In the 1970s the nation was awash in cheap drugs, not the prescription antidepressants of today.  An ex-wife accused him of using cocaine and tranquilizers—apparently a sin for an aging millionaire.  Certainly a man of no special personal virtue himself, Frank Lloyd Wright didn’t receive any of Hartford’s many commissions.  Nevertheless, Wright’s mean-spirited portrayal of him as a foolish, scatterbrained playboy has been quoted in the many obituaries.  However, consider the source.  Wright and Edward Durrell Stone, who built the Columbus Circle museum, were rivals.  Plus, the pompous and insecure Wright was a legendary ladies’ man.

Let’s look at the world Huntington Hartford left.  Planes to the Caribbean overflow with middle class tourists. Visitors and collectors flock to shows and auctions of 18th and 19th century painting and sculpture.  The public has fallen in love with urban structures clad in white marble and Renaissance motifs.  For maverick cultural sensibilities, there’s a fashionable New York museum, about 15 years old, that was created by George Soros for his wife, Susan.  It has become deservedly chic for exhibiting textiles, jewelry and household appliances as fine art.  Hartford may have been a risk-taker, but he was also way ahead of the curve.

The irony is that he has been dragged through the mud in the obituary columns by many of the same people and publications who bemoan the lowbrow state of our culture. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Weekly Standard have likened Hartford to today’s spoiled debutantes and drug addicted film stars.  Yet a glance at his record shows that he was quite the opposite, a dedicated and iconoclastic champion of fine art and culture and a visionary.  His losses were often, eventually, our gains.  Society needs more Huntington Hartfords.