Posted on 10/17/2006 9:01:12 PM PDT by verum ago
Pablo Picasso's "dream" painting has turned into a $139 million nightmare for Steve Wynn.
In an accident witnessed by a group that included Barbara Walters and screenwriters Nora Ephron and Nicholas Pileggi, Wynn accidentally poked a hole in Picasso's 74-year-old painting, "Le Reve," French for "The Dream."
A day earlier, Wynn had finalized a record $139 million deal for the painting of Picasso's mistress, Wynn told The New Yorker magazine
The accident occurred as a gesturing Wynn, who suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease that affects peripheral vision, struck the painting with his right elbow, leaving a hole the size of a silver dollar in the left forearm of Marie-Theresa Walter, Picasso's 21-year-old mistress.
"Oh shit, look what I've done," Wynn said, according to Ephron, who gave her account in a blog published on Monday.
Wynn paid $48.4 million for the Picasso in 1997 and had agreed to sell it to art collector Steven Cohen. The $139 million would have been $4 million higher than the previous high for a work of art, according to The New Yorker.
Cosmetics magnate Ronald Lauder paid $135 million in July for Gustav Klimt's 1907 portrait "Adele Bloch-Bauer I."
Wynn plans to restore "Le Reve" and keep it.
There is a definite balance between having details that seems extraneous, versus having details that are conspicuously absent.
In the Art Renewal Center 2005 Salon Competition, I found myself in disagreement with the chosen winner in the figurative category. The painting Ryan, which won first place, shows a boy standing in front of what appears to be a painted backdrop representing a bookcase filled with various bric-a-brac. To my eye, the background does not particularly match the subject in front. I'm not quite sure what about the background seems 'off'--the lighting and perspective seem consistent with what they should be, and yet the background looks more like a flat tapestry than a bookcase. What's your take?
Also, how do you like the third-place winner? That one I really do like.
I don't know if I mind that the background in "Ryan" occupies such a flat space, which I agree that it does. I do find the thing to be a little gimmicky...I feel like all the bric a brac has been put in to show off the artist's virtuosity. Also, I suppose the painting may be highly allegorical, between the selection of objects and the fact that the kid is standing on a gold ball. It's all beautifully painted, and I'm in awe of it, but it's not straightforward I don't think...I tend not to like art quite as well when you need a printed essay to understand it.
I'm with you in liking the third place painting the best.
ARC is a wonderful resource, isn't it?
It is indeed. Its search facilities can be a bit confusing sometimes, and sometimes the translations of paintings' titles as shown in the sidebars don't match those in the database, but it's still an amazing site.
I wonder how the history of art compares with that of music? Bach wrote pieces in forms which are perhaps quaint compared with some that have been developed since, but he mastered such forms to an extent that most more recent composers can't touch. Although rigid structures can be confining, an artwork of any sort which does not have some sort of underlying structure will just be an amorphous blob.
"Why is a pud growing out of her neck?"
THAT is what Steve Wynn was pointing out to his guests, when he had the accident! Read what firsthand witness Nora Ephron said: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nora-ephron/my-weekend-in-vegas_b_31800.html
If you can pay that much money for a painting, you already own an island.
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