Daisy Belin; Major Backer of Southland Cultural Institutions

Daisy Belin, a major Southern California supporter of cultural and educational institutions, including Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art, died Wednesday at the age of 58.

She died at home in Brentwood of ovarian cancer, said her husband, Los Angeles attorney Daniel N. Belin.

Daisy Belin served for more than a decade as a member of the board of trustees of MOCA, where she was a highly successful fund-raiser. She was on the board’s executive committee and program and exhibitions committee, working to create opportunities for young and emerging artists.

Equally important was her interest in making quality private elementary and secondary school education available to disadvantaged children. Belin worked toward that goal as trustee of the Westlake School for Girls and its post-merger successor, the Harvard-Westlake School, and as a trustee of the New Roads School in Santa Monica. She was a strong advocate of the merger between the Westlake girls institution and the Harvard School for boys, arguing that separating pupils by sex denied them equal educational opportunities.

As a supporter of women’s health care and reproductive rights, she served from 1979 until 1986 on the board of directors of Planned Parenthood/Los Angeles.

Belin was born in Vienna, and her family fled the Holocaust when she was an infant. She grew up in New York City, where she was educated at the High School of Music and Art. After graduation from Pratt Institute, she worked as an art director for Mademoiselle magazine.

In later years, Belin served as a trustee of the World Monuments Fund based in New York. Earlier this year she endowed a scholarship fund for women graduates of New York’s Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts.

In addition to her husband, Belin is survived by two children, Max of Phoenix and Jennifer of New York City; her mother, Alice Remer of Santa Monica; and a brother, Felix Remer of Ringwood, N.J.

The family has asked that memorial contributions be made to the Concern Foundation for Cancer Research in Los Angeles.