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.
Dumb Ass
Serves him right for trying to impress liberal twits like Barbara Walters and Nora Ephron. Judging from Ephron's work, she wouldn't know art if it bit her in the ass. I talked to the three people that saw her remake of Bewitched and they couldn't wait to get out of the theater.
Some of his earlier work is tolerable, if uninspired. The vast majority of it, though, is way overrated. By contrast, I don't know if there's a single Bouguereau painting I've seen that I haven't at least reasonably liked, and many of them I just adore.
I went. Took a week to get the smell off.
I love to hear the cretin morons pronounce themselves superior for disdaining the art.
It's a beautiful piece, even if the cultural cretins pretend they don't understand it.
"Some of his earlier work is tolerable, if uninspired. The vast majority of it, though, is way overrated. By contrast, I don't know if there's a single Bouguereau painting I've seen that I haven't at least reasonably liked, and many of them I just adore."
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I recall a show of Picasso's formative years from childhood to age 25 that was damn fascinating. Alas, he peaked too soon, after Le Demioselles d'Auvignon it was all downhill from there.
Funny how Bouguereau has made such a comeback. He dominated the French Academy to an unhealthy extent in his day. The smart set spent nearly a century bad-mouthing him and everything he stood for, but he was always popular amongst us peasants. I do however fault him for posing his models indoors then moving the scene outside. Winslow Homer was notably fanatic about plein air natural light.
I have to admit, I had to look to see what Bouguereau is after your reply. I am not very artsy fartsy.
Oh my gosh, that is the funniest thing I've read this week!! Still laughing.
I get to see the Picasso monstrosity in downtown Chicago and realize the guy was playing a joke on the city. Sorry, I am very analytical and have no appreciation for that kind of stuff. A Russell or Remmington is art to me. Picaso is kindergarten scribbling.
CALLING MR. BEAN
You break it, you buy it.
The Art Renewal Center has many paintings by centuries' worth of great artists, including some works produced in the last year.
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