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Wynn accidentally damages Picasso
Las Vegas Review-Journal ^ | 10/17/06

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.


TOPICS: Extended News; Miscellaneous; Unclassified
KEYWORDS: accidentshappen; lareve; oops; picasso; picassoholepoking; wynn
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To: machogirl
CALLING MR. BEAN

I wonder if Rowan Atkinson did the improved face on Whistler's Mother by himself.

41 posted on 10/17/2006 10:06:17 PM PDT by supercat (Sony delenda est.)
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To: supercat

Thanks. I will look through that site you posted. I have to admit though that I would enjoy a classic car show, an NFL game or even a good technologies discussion a lot more than an art museum.


42 posted on 10/17/2006 10:13:08 PM PDT by Proud2BeRight
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To: supercat

Modern art is trash (excepting Dali, but that is my peculiar fancy). Modern music (art song) is trash. Modern theatre, so far as I am conversant with it, is trash. Anyone who would pay more than a day's wages for any of it (including Dali) is a fool


43 posted on 10/17/2006 10:22:17 PM PDT by phelanw
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To: sinanju
I do however fault him for posing his models indoors then moving the scene outside.

I didn't mean to imply he was beyond criticism. And my praise was perhaps a bit too strong: I looked through some of his works again and there are some I don't particularly care for. But then again, very few people can produce very many great works of significance in any field without an occasional work that isn't so great. And even the works of Bouguereau that I don't particularly like aren't really bad--I just don't like them.

Sometimes Bouguereau's lighting isn't perfect, though it can be hard to tell looking at a computer picture of a hundred-year-old painting what the real thing looked like when painted. Looking through a bunch of his paintings, the lighting isn't consistently better on indoor poses than outdoor ones; there are some lighting miscues on both. Nonetheless, there is something about many of his paintings that is simply indescribably marvelous.

44 posted on 10/17/2006 10:39:05 PM PDT by supercat (Sony delenda est.)
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To: supercat
I wonder if Rowan Atkinson did the improved face on Whistler's Mother by himself.

Beat me to it, I was Googling to find the pic of the same...

45 posted on 10/17/2006 10:39:11 PM PDT by grey_whiskers
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To: TASMANIANRED

Put some ice on that.


46 posted on 10/17/2006 10:40:15 PM PDT by weegee (Remember "Remember the Maine"? Well in the current war "Remember the Baby Milk Factory")
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To: Beagle8U

is a Pud another name for a male private part?

That is remarkable eye work you have.

Also look at the man face down in the blue waters of her breasts.

What was Picasso abstracting about?


47 posted on 10/17/2006 10:42:30 PM PDT by Global2010
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To: Global2010

"is a Pud another name for a male private part? "

Yes.


48 posted on 10/17/2006 10:46:53 PM PDT by Beagle8U (Demonrats want the Gays out of Congress.....stand back and let them purge their base.)
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To: The Citizen Soldier

I have heard of sh!t for brains, but d!ck for brains? Now, that's a new one!


49 posted on 10/17/2006 10:58:37 PM PDT by xc1427
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To: Carling

"As someone who thinks that paying more than $100 for a work of art is absurd, I find this story hilarious."

I feel sorry for you.


50 posted on 10/17/2006 11:03:30 PM PDT by Kirkwood
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To: unspun

Great question.


51 posted on 10/17/2006 11:09:47 PM PDT by Frwy (Eternity without Jesus is a hell-of-a long time.)
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To: Carling

Oh man do I agree. I've seen works done by elephants and chickens and 3 yr old kids that had more interest than these million dollar(s) "master pieces". Some folk will do anything to gain that ellusive "position" among peers. Nonsense. Do some real good with that money and help some people who are hungry, cold or sick. Then you really have something worthwhile.


52 posted on 10/17/2006 11:19:58 PM PDT by Frwy (Eternity without Jesus is a hell-of-a long time.)
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To: Proud2BeRight

"I get to see the Picasso monstrosity in downtown Chicago and realize the guy was playing a joke on the city."

LOL! I saw it about 2 weeks after it was put up and when I've described it to people I've used the same words as you do.


53 posted on 10/17/2006 11:33:51 PM PDT by jwh_Denver (I hate election ads.)
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To: jwh_Denver
Wynne is on the skids, missed a loan payment a couple of months ago. Had to refinance at a higher interest rate. Wants to take the tip money from Dealers to subsidize the floor people so he doesn't have to give the floor people a raise. Now he is selling off a bunch of Non-Art to raise money. I think the golden boys is a bit tarnished.
54 posted on 10/17/2006 11:44:43 PM PDT by BooBoo1000 (Some times I wake up grumpy, other times I let her sleep/)
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To: verum ago

A properly done relining or patch will fix the hole. Whether or not a blending touch-up or a neutral tone on the damaged area (to show that a repair has been done) is done will depend on the professional art restorer's philosophy.

We've repaired paintings that movers had impaled with a forklift, a child had throw a ball at and an angry ex-wife had knifed. That one was a little scary.


55 posted on 10/17/2006 11:50:01 PM PDT by skr (We cannot play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent.-- Ronald Reagan)
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To: BulletBobCo
"Hang it over the mantle and put a vase in front of it."

Or you could put plate glass over it with an ashtray hole right over the tear and make it a table top. You could even put similar holes in other places on the canvas to make it look intentional and give it more of a 3D effect. Simpler still, you could stitch up the tear in her arm and rename the painting, "Arm Surgery." A clod like Wynn wouldn't know the difference anyway.

56 posted on 10/17/2006 11:55:00 PM PDT by Bonaparte
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To: supercat

I used to absolutely hate Picasso and Pollack, because I thought they had no talent. Then I saw their early work and realized that they both could actually paint. Their "earlier" drawings and sketches show that they could actually draw the human form, and very well. I do not like their later work, because I think it is quite childish. It's for cretinous art patrons who just want a name to hang on their walls.


57 posted on 10/18/2006 12:02:42 AM PDT by boop (Now Greg, you know I don't like that WORD!)
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To: phelanw
"Anyone who would pay more than a day's wages for any of it (including Dali) is a fool."

But is someone a fool when he invests $48 million, simply waits 9 years, and then realizes a gross profit of $90 million on that investment? That's $10 million a year, just for sitting on his keister. It's no different than flipping a piece of real estate.

58 posted on 10/18/2006 12:09:50 AM PDT by Bonaparte
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To: Global2010
"Also look at the man face down in the blue waters of her breasts. "

I'd say he's "drowning in a sea of love" -- and judging by his pallor, he's also suffering acute milk poisoning.

59 posted on 10/18/2006 12:13:15 AM PDT by Bonaparte
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To: Bonaparte

Good observation.

If it wasn't for Beagle8U honest observation I would have never gone back and seen these things.

Interesting.


60 posted on 10/18/2006 12:30:53 AM PDT by Global2010
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