Who Will Bid $50 Million?
BY Milton Esterow POSTED 07/09/13
When Henry Clay Frick bought Velázquez’s Portrait of Philip IV in 1911 for $475,000, he learned that the king had paid Velázquez about $600 for the painting. Frick calculated the compound interest at six percent on $600 from 1644 to 1911 and concluded that the price the king had paid for the portrait would work out, three centuries later, to 3,233,020,000 francs, according to the late Maurice Rheims, a Paris collector and auctioneer.
The king had made a poor investment, and Frick was “betraying the secret preoccupation of many collectors, which is to ensure that a work of art is as good an investment as it is attractive to look at,” Rheims wrote.
Whatever their secret preoccupations, new collectors continue to emerge throughout the world and are entering the art market at the highest level.
Seventeen collectors are new to the 2013 ARTnews 200 and one is new to the Top Ten, our lists of the most active collectors. They come from Russia, Brazil, China, Japan, England, Canada, the Netherlands, Finland, and the United States.
This is our 23rd year publishing the lists. Our correspondents interviewed dealers, auctioneers, collectors, museum directors, curators, and consultants in many countries.
According to Forbes magazine, there are 1,426 billionaires with an aggregate net worth of $5.4 trillion. The United States leads the list with 442 billionaires, followed by Asia-Pacific (386).
One art-world observer of billionaires told me recently, “You know the difference between them and us? For us, it’s money. For them it’s a wire transfer.”
I asked several art experts how many billionaires are prepared to spend, for example, $20 million on a work of art.
“Over 200,” said Marc Blondeau, who heads Blondeau & Cie, a Geneva gallery specializing in 19th- and 20th-century art. How many would go over $50 million? “About 100.”
Charles Moffett, executive vice president and vice chairman of Sotheby’s worldwide Impressionist, modern, and contemporary art department: “I’d say the figure for those going over $20 million is about 150. There are about 100 who would go over $50 million.” Last year Sotheby’s sold 13 works of art for over $20 million. Christie’s sold 20.
David Nash of the Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery in New York, which deals in contemporary and modern art, believes that there are about 200 very rich collectors who would shell out $20 million or more on one artwork. “As to $50 million on one work, well, $50 million isn’t what it used to be, but I’d say between 50 and 100,” he said.
Nash is now working with Walter Feilchenfeldt, a Zurich art dealer, and Jayne Warman, an art historian, on updating the 1996 catalogue raisonné of Cézanne paintings. The work was compiled by the late scholar and teacher John Rewald in collaboration with Feilchenfeldt and Warman.
In 2011, one of Cézanne’s Card Players series was sold for $250 million to the royal family of Qatar.
Warman said that in 1895, when Cézanne was virtually unknown, Ambroise Vollard, who was Cézanne’s dealer, sold a small Cézanne painting, Bather with Outstretched Arms, to Degas. The price was said to be $40.
At the same time, one observer wrote, Julien Tanguy, a Paris dealer in art supplies and art, sold small paintings by Cézanne for $8 but had trouble finding buyers.
Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip E. Aarons
New York
Real estate
Contemporary art
Roman Abramovich and Dasha Zhukova
Moscow
Steel, mining, investments, and professional soccer (Chelsea Football Club)
Modern and contemporary art
Ricard Akagawa
São Paulo, Brazil
Travel Agency
Latin American contemporary art
Paul Allen
Seattle
Computer software and sports franchises
Impressionism; Old Masters; modern and contemporary art
María Asunción Aramburuzabala
Mexico City
Beverages and investments
Modern and contemporary art
Hélène and Bernard Arnault
Paris
Luxury goods (LVMH)
Contemporary art
Laura and John Arnold
Houston
Hedge fund
Postwar and contemporary art
Hans Rasmus Astrup
Oslo
Shipping- and finance-related activities
Contemporary art
Maria Baibakova and Oleg Baybakov
Moscow; New York
Commodities Industry and real estate
Contemporary art
Cristina and Thomas W. Bechtler-Lanfranconi
Küsnacht, Switzerland
Investments and real estate
Contemporary art; photography
Maria and William Bell Jr.
Los Angeles
Television production
Modern and contemporary art
Yang Bin
Beijing
Car Dealer
Modern and contemporary Chinese art
Debra and Leon Black
New York
Investment banking
Old Masters; Impressionism; modern painting; Chinese sculpture; contemporary art
Len Blavatnik
New York; London
Investments (music industry, other companies)
Modern and contemporary art
Nelson Blitz Jr. and Catherine Woodard
New York and Rye, New York
HVAC mechanical contracting
German Expressionism; modern and contemporary art; Wiener Werkstätte metalwork and furniture
Neil G. Bluhm
Chicago
Real estate
Postwar and contemporary art
Christian Boros
Berlin
Advertising; communication; publishing
Contemporary art
Irma and Norman Braman
Miami Beach
Automobile dealerships
Modern and contemporary art
Udo Brandhorst
Munich
Insurance
Postwar and contemporary art
Peter M. Brant
Greenwich, Connecticut
Newsprint manufacturing
Contemporary art; design; furniture
Edythe L. and Eli Broad
Los Angeles
Financial services and housing development (retired)
Contemporary art
Bettina and Donald L. Bryant Jr.
New York; Napa and Indian Wells, California
Executive and employee benefits, wine making (Bryant Family Vineyard)
Old Masters; American masters of the second half of the 20th century; Abstract Expressionism, especially de Kooning
Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy
Colorado; Connecticut; New York
Inheritance (shopping malls) and commodities trading
Contemporary art
Frieder Burda
Baden-Baden, Germany
Publishing
Modern and contemporary art
Monique and Max Burger
Hong Kong
Investments
Post-1990s art
Joop van Caldenborgh
Wassenaar, the Netherlands
Chemical industry (Caldic)
Modern and contemporary art, especially Conceptual; photography; sculpture
Mickey Cartin
New York
Investments
Late medieval and Early Renaissance painting; 20th-century painting; emerging artists; illuminated manuscripts
Richard Chang
New York; Beijing
Investments
Contemporary art
Pierre Chen
Taipei, Taiwan
Electronics
Modern and contemporary art
Halit Cingillioglu
Istanbul
Banking
Impressionism; postwar, modern, and contemporary art
Ella Fontanals Cisneros
Madrid; Gstaad, Switzerland
Investments, real estate, and telecommunications
Contemporary art, video, and photography, with an emphasis on architecture and historical geometric abstraction from Latin America
Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and Gustavo A. Cisneros
Caracas, Venezuela; Dominican Republic; New York
Media, entertainment, telecommunications, consumer products, and travel resorts
Modern and contemporary Latin American art; 19th-century traveler artists to Latin America; colonial art and objects from Latin America; Amazonian ethnographic objects
Alexandra and Steven A. Cohen
Greenwich, Connecticut
Hedge fund
Impressionism; modern and contemporary art
Cherryl and Frank Cohen
Cheshire, England
Home-improvement stores
Contemporary art; modern British art
Eduardo F. Costantini
Buenos Aires
Asset management and real estate
Modern and contemporary Latin American art
Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz
Key Biscayne, Florida
Coca-Cola bottling in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean
Contemporary art
Dimitris Daskalopoulos
Athens
Financial services and investment company (Damma Holdings SA)
Contemporary art, especially large-scale installations; sculpture, drawings, collage, film, and video
Hélène and Michel Alexandre David-Weill
New York and Long Island, New York; Paris and Cap d’Antibes, France
Banking
17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century French painting
Philippe Decelle
Brussels
Construction
Plastic design, especially Pop furniture made between 1960 and 1973
Beth Rudin DeWoody
New York and Southampton, New York; West Palm Beach, Florida
Real estate
Modern and contemporary art
Robert and Renee Drake
Wassenaar, Netherlands
Commodities
Contemporary art
Glenn Dubin
New York
Asset Management
Modern and contemporary art
Barney Ebsworth
Seattle
Cruise ships and luxury travel (Intrav)
20th-century American art; Old Masters
Stefan T. Edlis and H. Gael Neeson
Chicago; Aspen, Colorado
Plastics manufacturing (retired)
Postwar and contemporary art
Carl Gustaf Ehrnrooth
Helsinki
Construction and Investments
Scandinavian, European, and American contemporary art
Caryl and Israel Englander
New York
Hedge fund
Contemporary art
Agnes and Karlheinz Essl
Vienna and Klosterneuburg, Austria
Retail (bauMax)
Contemporary art, especially Austrian and German painting
Harald Falckenberg
Hamburg, Germany
Law practice and filling-station equipment
Contemporary German and American art
Frank J. Fertitta III and Lorenzo Fertitta
Las Vegas
Casinos (Station Casinos) and professional fighting (Ultimate Fighting Championship)
Modern and contemporary art
Aaron I. Fleischman
Miami Beach
Law and investments
Modern and contemporary art
Maxine and Stuart Frankel
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Real estate
Minimalism; abstract art; ceramics; new media art
Amanda and Glenn R. Fuhrman
New York
Investments (MSD Capital)
Contemporary art
Soichiro Fukutake
Okayama, Japan
Publishing
Impressionism; contemporary art
Antoine de Galbert
Paris
Inheritance
Primitive art; contemporary art
Danielle and David Ganek
New York
Family office and novelist
Contemporary art; photography
Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis
Regensburg, Germany
Inheritance and investments
Contemporary art
Ingvild Goetz
Munich
Inheritance (mail-order retail)
Contemporary art
Noam Gottesman
New York
Hedge fund
Postwar and contemporary art
Laurence Graff
Gstaad, Switzerland
Jewelry
Modern and contemporary art
