Huntington Hartford, the famous heir of the A&P grocery business, renowned for spending his fortune on cultural investments, died Monday at his home in Bahamas, at the age of 97.

His daughter, Juliet Hartford, who said her father had died of natural causes, announced his death.

Born in New York on April 18, 1911, he was named George Huntington Hartford after his grandfather, who was the founder of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company in 1859.

Hartford used to rank among the richest people in the world before spending his entire fortune on businesses that failed or that he lost interest into, on art and on an extravagant lifestyle.

Becoming the beneficiary of a $1.5 million annual income following his grandfather’s death, he lived like royalty during his childhood.

In his youth, he was a popular appearance in the tabloids due to his eccentric life and four marriages. He paid millions in divorces with his wives.

After spending all his money, Hartford became a drug addict, disappeared from New York’s social life and took refuge in Lyford Cay, a Bahamas enclave.

He told Vanity Fair in 2004 that he didn’t regret losing his money in cultural purposes, while trying to “create something beautiful.”

Huntington was famous in the art world as a critic of modernism. In 1964, he opened the Huntington Hartford Gallery of Modern Art, which was designed by Edward Durrell Stone on Columbus Circle. Hartford was against modernism in art, condemning the abstract trend and encouraging the realistic one. His 1964 book “Art or Anarchy?” is a polemic against modernism.

In later years, Huntington led a quite life in Bahamas, consuming his last millions from a trust that had been administered for him.

His funeral is to take place on Friday at a Nassau church.