Lionel I Pincus

Though his father was a clothing manufacturer and retail store owner, Mr. Pincus chose not to join the family business. Instead, after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1953, he went on to earn a master’s in business administration at Columbia in 1956. By 1964, Mr. Pincus had opened Lionel I. Pincus. Shortly thereafter, he met Mr. Warburg, a refugee from Nazi Germany, and they merged their firms in 1966. In 1971, five years after the merger, the combined firm had 33 employees. By 2002, when Mr. Pincus stepped down from hands-on leadership, it had 280 employees. Mr. Pincus was active in a broad range of philanthropies. He contributed several million dollars to a $5 million renovation of the map room at the New York Public Library, which was renamed the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal of Jordan Map Division. He was also a director of the School of American Ballet, chairman emeritus of the trustees of Columbia and a member of the board of overseers of the Graduate School of Business of Columbia. Mr. Pincus’s wife, the former Suzanne Storrs, died in 1995 of cancer. Before marrying Mr. Pincus, she represented her home state, Utah, in the 1955 Miss America Pageant. She went on to act in summer stock and appeared on the TV series “Naked City” in the 1950s. Besides his two sons, both of Manhattan, Mr. Pincus is survived by three grandchildren. Princess Firyal became his companion starting in 1996.