When you have really made it on Wall Street, you fill up your Fifth Avenue co-op with expensive art, just as surely as snow is followed by little boys on sleds (to paraphrase Arthur Okun, the legendary Yale economist).
Bankers and traders -- and especially hedge-fund managers and private-equity titans --seem to think that art is not only a great place to stash their cash but also bestows upon them a certain intangible cachet that their jobs, especially these days, donít provide.
There is a long history of Wall Street tycoons indulging themselves this way, and some actually seemed to know what they were doing in buying art.
Not for nothing did Bobbie Lehman (seen above on right with partner and insurance king John Hancock), the patriarch of Lehman Brothers after World War II, have one of the best private art collections on the planet.
Other financiers -- like Michel David-Weill (pictured left), the scion of the Lazard banking fortune; Stephen A. Cohen, the self-made hedge-fund billionaire; and Leon Black, the private-equity don -- are widely considered to have among the finest art collections in the world.
For Wall Street, high-priced art remains the ultimate status symbol. But is that market becoming more dangerous than derivatives?
But like Wall Street, the art market is a very dangerous place, populated by any number of unscrupulous figures finding increasingly sophisticated ways to separate people from their money.
Although no one is likely to have much sympathy for a bunch of Wall Street types who may end up getting snookered while trying to use art to improve their tarnished images, the fact remains that as the sums paid for works of art spiral upwards -- in May, a Picasso painting sold for a record $106.5 million -- the questionable behavior seems to be metastasizing. This must stop.
Luckily, when you join the ARTKABINETT social network for fine art collectors you are part of community of savvy fine art collectors who are happy to guide and assist -- all for the love of collecting!
Ansel Adams ReprintsLast week in The Times, Reyhan Harmanci described the shenanigans of a Beverly Hills gallery owner, David W. Streets, who is trying to sell a box of 65 photograph negatives -- found ten years ago at a garage sale in Fresno, Calif. -- as the long lost work of the landscape photographer Ansel Adams (Kab Pedia biography accessed at left).
Streets, who according to The Times was "convicted of passing bad checks, fraud and petty theft over a seven-year period," and the man who bought the negatives in 2000, Rick Norsigian, insist that they are Adams's work "beyond a reasonable doubt" and are collectively worth $200 million.
The two men are busy selling prints made from the negatives at between $1,500 and $7,500 each.
As the Times article pointed out, Streets's claim of the value of the negatives attracted worldwide attention, and one of Adams' grandsons called the finding a "scam." A woman in Oakland, Marian Walton, claimed to have a photograph -- taken by her uncle -- that was "identical"to one of the negatives. about fell off my sofa," Ms. Walton said when she saw Streets's claims about the negatives on television.
But these accusations are doing nothing to slow down Streets and Norsigian.
On Saturday, May 15, 2010, The Honorable Jimmy Delshad, Mayor of Beverly Hills presented a proclamation and proclaimed May 15, 2010: as "David W. Streets Day" in Beverly Hills, CA. Also, The Honorable John Heilman, Mayor of West Hollywood, presented a Proclamation from the City of West Hollywood to David W. Streets.
"On a classy evening, David W. Streets, once again, gathered his one-of-a-kind clientele and friends to celebrate 25 years in Fine Arts and Celebrity Memorabilia and one year since he assembled 35 of the finest living artists from around the world under one roof in Beverly Hills.
The fine art selection lingered in the eyes of the admirers while David made everybody feel welcome and valued. The atmosphere was incandescent, and I could not have spent my night in any other way than with David and his sophisticated invitees." said Aura Imbarus, author of "ìOut of the Transylvania Night."
David W. Streets celebrated his 25th Year in the Fine Arts Business with Kate Linder, Beverly Hills Mayor Jimmy Deshad, West Hollywood Mayor John Heilman, Barbara Lazaroff and Florence LaRue.
Others in attendance were recording song writer and performer Fawn, personality David Harrison Levi, book author Aura Imbarus, Patrice Ryan, Karl Rucker, Michael Milker and Kerri Lynn Jennings.
David Streets has been in the business of Fine Arts of Business for 25 years. David W. Streets Beverly Hills is located at 9407 S. Santa Monica Blvd Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Tomorrow...some lost and re-found Degas will dance their way here for your consideration and caution.
